Younger than Desired
by The Giant Daifuku
Summary: Sequel to When Pirate and Pirate Meet 2. Jack sailed to Ivalice searching for the Fountain of Youth, and with help from two Sky Pirates, finds it. In the fight that ensues with the guardian, Balthier is turned 16- again. "Worst year of my life, I recall."
1. Over the Edge, Again

This is the third installment of my POTC, FFXII fanfictions, and I am very happy to publish it. Thank you for all the support for my writing! And now, without further ado, the story.

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

* * *

Ah, how good it felt to be on the high seas again. Jack unrolled his map, cut out from the chart he'd stolen from Barbossa. He'd been sailing for almost two years, alone in his dinghy, but his solitude didn't last. It never did. A cannon boomed in warning, splashing a shell so close he was showered with water. Jack turned in his seat to take in the visage of the _Black Pearl_, gaining on him day by day. It was finally within firing range? Brilliant. He would have run out some guns, except his boat was so miniscule a cannon would not have even fit inside.

"Leave me alone, you pox ridden lummox!" Jack hollered as another shot came dangerously close to his ship. He opened the sail a little wider, and the skiff sped forward, the _Pearl _dropping almost out of sight, but still a threatening spire on the edge of the horizon. Jack went back to looking at his map.

He was searching for the Fountain of Youth, hopefully a method of immortality that did not involve becoming undead and evil. Unfortunately, that goal, too, seemed so very, very far away. Jack had been sailing a sea with absolutely no landmarks for days, and the repetition was killing him. Not even the compass, endowed upon him by Calypso, could point out where he was. It simply spun in circles, never stopping.

That night, he watched the moon sparkle on water like mirror glass. The wind had stopped completely, and his dinghy drifted with barely a wake. The _Black Pearl_ also drifted, her sails slack in the windless night. Jack took a deep drink of rum and put his head down to sleep. Unless they started rowing, they would never catch up to him tonight.

* * *

The roar of a waterfall jolted him to wakefulness. Had he reached an island? Jack sat up and looked around. There was still no land in sight, and to his surprise, the Black Pearl had gained on him somewhat. He looked back to the horizon, where the roar was coming from, and white mist rose toward the blue heavens. He'd heard of things like this before, in stories about the edge of the world.

The edge of the world. A huge waterfall, plummeting over the side of the Earth. Jack suddenly realized his danger, a moment too late. He sprang to his feet, bracelets, earrings, and necklace tinkling as he attempted to do everything in his power to turn the dinghy, but to no avail. The current had already taken hold of the boat, and nothing he did could change the fact that he was about to be flung from the face of the Earth. He sat down and pulled the cork from his rum bottle, taking his time in finishing it.

At least the _Black Pearl_ would go down with him. Barbossa was making no effort to turn aside, and let the ship run straight for him. Jack belched, patting his stomach. It was good rum. Wherever he ended up, he hoped it had some.

The dinghy bobbed up and down on increasingly choppy waves, going faster and faster. Whitecaps splashed at the gunwales, threatening to swamp the boat, and Jack began to bale water madly.

"Bugger." he grunted. "Bugger, bugger, bugger!" The bucket he was using seemed to be eluding his grasp, and he did not notice he was at the edge of the waterfall until the prow of the dinghy was already over the edge. Then he dropped.

It felt as if his stomach was fighting to burst out of his mouth as he fell at dizzying speeds. Above, he could see another ship falling as well, and if he listened hard enough, he swore he could hear them screaming.

Strangely, the sky surrounding him did not fade into darkness, but maintained a serene shade of blue. Suddenly, the water vanished, bending in a way that defied gravity to glue itself to a new sea. A different sea. Jack's dinghy also curved around the bend to crash down upon the new ocean, a sparkling royal blue expanse that seemed to go as far as the horizon. With another crash, a row boat splashed down noisily nearby, holding Elizabeth and Barbossa. Jack pointed at them.

"You? Where's the _Pearl_?" he asked. Barbossa snorted.

"Mutiny. The crew took the ship and dumped us in a rowboat."

"Take that, you back stabbing, thieving goat!" Jack shouted triumphantly, punching the air. Barbossa jumped to his feet, almost capsizing the dinghy he and Elizabeth shared until she pulled him down.

"I'll show you back stabbing, you mutton-brained piece of rat excrement!" he bellowed, taking out a pistol.

"It won't do to shoot him, he has the map!" Elizabeth said, pushing the pistol away.

"So he does." Barbossa admitted grudgingly, putting the pistol back in his belt. "Well, navigator? Where be we, according to yer map?" he asked. Jack stared at the map, then looked at their surroundings. A tall building that was even bigger than the piled ship-town of Shipwreck loomed over them, right on the edge of the waterfall that must have been the end of this world. Unfortunately, it wasn't on the map.

"I don't know where we be." Jack said, perplexed, as he looked from tower to map and back. "It's not on the map of un-map-able places."

"That's not even a word!" Elizabeth exploded. "Where are we?"

"I told you I don't know, lassie!" Jack yelled, waving the map over his head. Barbossa flung a rope across the gap between them, getting no small satisfaction out of the fact that it bounced off Jack's head before landing in the dinghy.

"Well, it wouldn't do for either of us to get lost before makin' it back home. Tie this round yer mast, and we'll lash these two ships together." he said. Jack rubbed his head, complying.

"I ain't planning to go back, not yet. The map directed me over the edge in search of the Fountain of Youth, and I'm not leavin' till I got it." he grumbled. Barbossa froze.

"Fountain of Youth? That be the case, I'm a-stayin' with you." he said. "I want in."

"Then you can have in, because I now have absolutely no clue as to where we are, therefore making the Fountain impossible to reach."

As Barbossa and Jake continued bickering, Elizabeth spotted a black triangular fin cruising toward them. She frowned, and nudged the bearded pirate next to her. She was ignored until the fin was right next to them, and the creature reared its head.

It was horrifically ugly, bearing the same colorations and markings as a killer whale, but it had a huge, jutting jaw and a colorful tail. Elizabeth screamed, and Barbossa whipped around, pulling his pistol from his belt.

"Take this, fish face!" he yelled, firing the shot. The creature squealed, but kept coming. Elizabeth drew her sword, and attempted to hack at it, but the scales turned her blade away. Finally, after a prolonged battle, they managed to drop the fish, dragging the body onto the boats.

"You think it's edible?" Jack asked, cautiously slicing open the creature from chin to tail and peering at the red meat inside. That was strange— wasn't fish meat normally white or pink?

"Even if it is, we've no means to cook it." Elizabeth said, scanning the horizon for any more enemies. She did spot a few things: a tiny black dot high in the sky, and something that looked like a sparkling bug rising out of the tower, almost at the top. "Now, what is that?" she wondered, shielding her eyes from the sun's glare. Jack squinted up at it.

"It's coming toward us." he gulped, as a high pitched, whining roar filled their ears. Barbossa pointed his pistol at it, but he doubted the bullet would even make dent in the bug's shining white underside. Two eyes at the front, glowing purplish-blue lids whirling round and round in blinding circles, goggled at them, unblinking. The boats were rocked back and forth in the winds caused by the creature's invisible, buffeting wings, as it lowered to a distance just to their left, edging closer and closer. Finally, with a sigh, the winds died, and the bug hovered nearby, its voice silent. Jack stared at it, his ship being the closer one, and clenched his hand about his sword nervously.

"I don't know what you are, but I'm armed and very dangerous!" he shouted.

"I'm sure you are." a very familiar voice echoed seemingly from the bug, which drifted through the air at a sedate pace to keep up with them. "Now tell me if my eyes deceive me: Jack? Elizabeth? _Barbossa?_ What in the name of Ivalice are you doing here?"

"How do you know us, you great shiny insect?" Jack demanded, then stopped. "We're in Ivalice?"

"Yes, you are in Ivalice." the bug sounded faintly amused, then very quietly, they heard it say, "Insect?"

An even quieter, but feminine voice said something back in an unintelligible tongue, and the bug laughed. _Did it have a mate?_ Jack wondered.

"Sorry, I forgot. You've never seen an airship before, have you, Jack? Might I welcome you to the _Strahl_?" the bug asked, and at the same time, there was the hiss of escaping air while part of the bug's carapace dropped away, forming stairs. And at the top of them stood a man whose smile looked wide enough to swallow the fish the pirates had killed whole.

"Balthier!" Elizabeth cried, jumping to her feet and rocking the boats dangerously. "How did you get here?" she asked.

"I _live_ here, Elizabeth! You're in Ivalice! Didn't I tell you?" he smirked.

"That is the _Strahl_ you always talk about?" Barbossa gawped, his eyes looking as if they were about to pop out of their sockets as he stared at the bug— no, the airship hovering just off their port side.

"Indeed." the sky pirate nodded, taking a few steps down the stairs so that his face was bathed in sunlight, no longer hidden under the ship's wings. "Now, what I'm interested in is how _you_ got_ here_. You're floating just off the bloody Ridorana Cataract, and it's a nasty place, if I do say so myself."

"We sailed off the edge of the world!" Jack said, gesturing toward the waterfall the Pharos Lighthouse was perched on. "We seek the Fountain of Youth. Perhaps you've run across it in your travels? You haven't aged a day. And where's Fran?"

"Pure circumstance." Balthier dismissed the aging comment. "The Fountain of Youth? Can't say I've ever heard of it, though I can guess what it does from its name." he said. "As for Fran, she's in the cockpit, making sure we don't drift too far away from you. Can't leave the ship running without a pilot, you know."

"Pilot?" Elizabeth asked.

"You naval types would call them helmsmen." Balthier clarified. "Usually, that's me, but I'm out here talking to you. Why don't you throw me a rope? We'll tow you in to Balfonheim, and then we can talk more easily."

"Agreed." Jack said, tossing a rope as far and as high as he could. Balthier leaned over from the steps, looking as if he was about to tumble over the edge and into the sea, but caught the rope, tying it around one of the metal slabs that made up the stairs into the ship. He went back inside, where they heard him calling to Fran. Jack grinned hugely at his two companions. "I can't believe we made it to Ivalice!" he said cheerfully.

"Well, now that we're here, what do we do now?" Elizabeth asked.

"Explore!" Jack proclaimed.

"Find the Fountain." Barbossa said.

"Explore and find the Fountain!" Jack waved his hat jubilantly. Elizabeth crossed her arms and rolled her eyes.

"Pirates and their sense of adventure." she huffed.

* * *

"We're going back to Balfonheim, nice and slow since we're towing them with plain old rope." Balthier told Fran, sitting back in the pilot's chair and gripping the steering wheel. It drove him crazy to fly so slowly, and his fingers itched to press the overdrive button, pulsing green on the dashboard, but doing so would sever the rope, marooning the pirates he now dragged behind him. "They seek the Fountain of Youth."

"Eternal life, eternal youth." Fran said softly. "Any Hume would wish it. The Viera are long lived by nature, aging slowed to a crawl by grace of the Mother. And so it is for you, bound to my life as you are."

"Hm, I rather like that, actually. How long do you think we have left?"

"Morbid, are we?" Fran looked at him sourly. "I will only say this once. I did not want to tell Vaan this because he would never think the same of us again, but I shall be eighty-nine this year. I suppose that means we have about two-hundred years together."

Balthier whistled. "Long time, eh?"

"In the eyes of the Mother, a lifetime passes in the blink of an eye."

Balthier checked a few gages and flipped the autopilot on. "I had better go check on our unexpected guests again. Wouldn't want them to be eaten by another Piranha, would we?"

* * *

Jack finished carving out another strip of Piranha flesh, smelling it daintily. Balthier reappeared on the stairs from inside the _Strahl_, and now Fran came to join him. In the mean time, the ship continued its lazy drift northwest.

"Is this fish edible?" Jack asked the sky pirate. He shrugged.

"Edible enough, I suppose. You could eat it raw, if you're really desperate." he answered. Fran brought out their map.

"This Fountain of Youth you speak of, on a map it is marked?" she asked. Barbossa nodded.

"We'll show it to you at this Balfonheim place." he promised. Jack perked up. Didn't Balthier mention Balfonheim, a long time ago? Didn't he say it was like Tortuga?

"Is there rum in Balfonheim?" he asked. Balthier laughed heartily.

"Of course you'd ask if there was rum." he stretched a hand toward the horizon, where over a town by the sea, airships flew in and out of the aerodrome and filled the sky above it, and a sea ships made completely out of metal floated in the harbor. "Behold, Balfonheim, and, might I add, the seat of the Pirate King." his eyes gleamed with mirth as he took in the sight of the trio's awestruck faces. "And I'll have you know, Balfonheim is tiny compared to places like Archades."

"The Pirate King? That's you!" Elizabeth said, her eyes filling with understanding. "You were slithering out again!" The sky pirate winced.

"Spare me the lecture, Mother, I was hunting a Mark, the Ixion. Not that you'd know what it is. I was earning gil."

"Gil?"

"Money." Fran explained, tossing a coin up and catching it in one hand. "But technically, you've been dodging your duty for the last two years, ever since we came back from the Caribbean, and you've let it fall to Raz, Rikken, and Elza to uphold the port unless they pin you down to something. You are a King in name only."

"I would like to keep it that way, thank you." Balthier said curtly as he untied the ropes from the stairs and dove into the sea. "Dock the _Strahl_, would you? I'll meet you at the Whitecap." he swam to Jack's dinghy so he could help direct them into the docks, shaking his head like a wet dog and spraying water everywhere. "Now, a word of warning. Humes, like us, are not the only intelligent race, unlike your world, so do _not _be alarmed." As soon as he said that, a grey bangaa stuck his nose over the side of the quay, and broke into a reptilian smile with row after row of teeth.

"Balthier! This is the last place I thought I'd see ya, and wet as a fish! Somethin' happen to the _Strahl_?"

"Heavens, no! I'd never abandon my girl like that, Sorehn. What do you take me for?" Balthier put a theatrical hand over his heart and tossed the rope to the bangaa, Sorehn, who caught it in a three fingered grip and began reeling them in, his strong muscles bunching.

"Who're yer friends?" Sorehn tied an expert's knot around a dock post, and reached out a scaly hand to help the occupants of the skiffs out.

"May I introduce you to the Lady Elizabeth Swann, and Captains Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa?" Balthier nodded to each of them in turn.

"A pleasure, to be sure." the bangaa shook their hands warmly, dwarfing the human's hands in his huge claw. "Normally I'd make ye pay to tie up at these docks, but you're Lord Balthier's friends, so you get 'ta stay fer free, 'cuz he's the King and all."

"Please, don't flaunt my sore spots for the world to see." Balthier groaned, leading them away with Sorehn's laughter ringing in their ears.

"What are they?" Elizabeth whispered, clutching Balthier's arm as they made their way down the wood plank street toward the Quayside Court, where the Whitecap lie.

"Bangaa, possibly the Humes' closest cousin when it comes to intelligence and mannerisms. They're quite amazing creatures, really." he answered. "Then you get the Seeqs, who are nice enough in their own right, I suppose. They're the really fat ones with big teeth that hang out of their mouths, even when closed."

"Like a crocodile and an alligator!" Jack said, rubbing his twin braided beard.

"Sure." Balthier said noncommittally, not exactly sure what those were.

"You tell the difference between 'em by looking to see if their teeth stick out when their mouths are closed." Barbossa explained. Balthier nodded, before opening the door of the tavern to graciously let Elizabeth through first, followed by the two men. He spotted Fran sitting at the table, and Nono on the table, and waved the three following him to go to her. Then he sauntered up to the port wench who commissioned the hunt for the Ixion in the first place.

"You killed the Ixion! No more nightmares for me! I can't thank you enough, my lord." the girl said, almost weeping tears of joy as she grasped his hand. "As promised, your reward." she handed him a gil pouch and a greatsword she produced from under the table, a small quiver of bolts hanging from the handle. Balthier took it from her with a charming smile before drifting back to Fran.

He found Barbossa engrossed in conversation with Nono. Apparently the man had a penchant for loving all things small and furry. Nono laughed squeakily.

"Amazing that you come from another world, kupo! Master Balthier was talking about you when he came back from being sucked into the Gate Crystal, and everyone thought he was absolutely crazy!" Luckily the Moogle didn't seem to begrudge Barbossa for turning Balthier into an undead zombie for a few months. Of course, the Moogle was also very good at hiding that sort of thing… Balthier shuddered. He didn't think Nono had quite forgiven him yet, for faking his death on the _Bahamut_ without saying anything to him. Nono had been quite broken up about it, going on to call him "an insensitive peacock in Hume skin, kupo!" Balthier rubbed his eyes. There _was_ the matter of the huge monkey wrench that had fallen on his head and knocked him out cold about two weeks ago, and now he couldn't remember exactly what he had been doing at the time.

Jack unrolled the map, pointing to the picture of the Fountain. "That's where I was headed before I sailed off the face of the Earth." he said. Fran laid the map of Ivalice next to it, frowning thoughtfully. She rotated the Ivalice map a few times, before tapping a peninsula labeled "La Florida" with her long fingernail.

"Balthier, where does this look like to you?" she asked. Her partner squinted at it, before replying,

"It looks like the place where Giruvegan lies, but I'd be dead before I went back to that place."

"You are dead." Elizabeth pointed out. Balthier buried his face in his hands.

"I mean I don't want to go back to Giruvegan. Too many bad memories. And, it's the only Jagd the _Strahl_ can't fly through. I think it has to be a barrier those damned Occuria put up." he explained.

Barbossa looked up from where he had been talking with Nono. "You mean we can't get there?" he looked angry. "I sailed off the end of world _again_ just to find that I did it for no reason?"

"We installed a skystone in the _Strahl_ that enables her fly through Jagd, which are places that the Mist is so thick that airships can't fly, kupo." Nono said. "But the Occuria are like the gods of Ivalice, and seem to have put of a field in which airships and the like cannot fly all together, kupo. You must go by foot."

"Aye," Balthier agreed. "And the closest I can get the _Strahl_ to the Feywood would be the Paramina Rift, a horrible place of ice, snow, and creatures who would decide you are lunch as soon as they'd look at you."

"But you can get us to this Giruvegan?" Elizabeth asked.

"Must I?"

Barbossa stood, pointing a pistol at Balthier's face. "You must." he gave a snaggle-toothed smile. The sky pirate raised an eyebrow.

"I don't take well to being given orders. I have you by the… never mind, Barbossa. Kill me or Fran and who will pilot the airship for you? It's not easy, and the _Strahl_ is a touchy girl." he said wearily. Barbossa snarled and jammed the pistol back in his belt.

"Ar, ye got me."

Jack looked up from where he had been happily drowning his worries in a mug of rum. "If I may put in my opinion- hic- you need to appeal to the better side of a man's nature and call up some on some boons and favors he owes you." he said. Fran's amber eyes darted toward Balthier.

"You owe him favors?" she said ominously.

"Yes, I'm afraid ole Balthy does owe me favors." Jack continued drunkenly, ignoring the fact that Balthier's hands gripped the table with white knuckles. The sky pirate was imagining the table was Jack's neck. "When he first came to our world, I got him out of prison and acted as his personal transportation service to get him home."

"Oh? Who made it possible to kill Davy Jones?" Balthier challenged him. Jack waved a hand shakily.

"Different kind of boon. I'm askin' for the transportation one- hic!" Fran touched Balthier's shoulder, and he twitched, his face one of passing annoyance.

"Fine!" he groaned, standing up. "But before we go on this goose chase and get ourselves killed, I want one last night to myself."

* * *

Elizabeth stared at Balthier in disgust. The Hume was slumped shirtless over the table in the _Strahl_'s miniscule onboard kitchen, with two strong smelling empty bottles and a third one half full for company.

"How could you do this to yourself, Balthier? I thought you couldn't eat or drink anymore!" she cried. Balthier hiccupped, raising his head from the metal surface to look at her through bleary, lidded eyes.

"Th' lassie Calypso fixed me up, so I can eat and drink now if I wan' to." he slurred, dropping from his usual highborn Archadian accent to a very vulgar form of Balfonheim street cant. He put a hand against his forehead, grimacing. "Mm… my head hurts… Fran!" he moaned, staggering to his feet. Elizabeth tried to keep from staring at the puckered scar adorning his chest, right where his heart should be, a glint of gold shining through it when he passed under a light shining from the ceiling. Fran appeared at the door, her nose wrinkling as the smell of alcohol assailed her senses.

"It would appear you are quite drunk, Ffamran Balthier Mied Bunansa Archades." she said calmly, while her ears turned back. Balthier flinched— even in his severely inebriated state, he knew that when Fran used his full name and his pseudonym in the same sentence, he was in deep trouble.

"'msorry." he mumbled, scratching the back of one hand bashfully. His cheeks were red, but it was from the amount of liquor he'd consumed. Jack and Barbossa also came to see what would happen, peeking over Fran's shoulder.

"Your punishment today shall be to successfully cast Esuna on yourself, then scrub yourself clean and wash your mouth until I can no longer smell alcohol on your being." Fran said, before vanishing into the cockpit. Jack clucked his tongue condescendingly.

"Hard luck, mate. You could have chosen a better time to get smashed, you know." the rum loving pirate said.

"Shut up." Balthier was pulling his shirt on, hiding the scar. Elizabeth relaxed and settled down to make sure he did not hurt himself before managing to sober up. The sky pirate began to chant an incantation haltingly, stumbling over the words as his tongue did not have the capability to perform the gymnastics required for casting spells at the moment. When he stopped, there was a bright flash and a muted boom. When their vision cleared, Balthier was hunched over the metal garbage can, heaving his guts into its cool depths. Barbossa knelt by him, laying a claw like hand on his back. Balthier glared at him, panting.

"Aye, that's a good boy. Get it all up, an' you can try your spell again later." the pirate was chuckling. Balthier spat out a glob of something he didn't really want to think about.

"Damn spell recoil." he gasped, going into heaving fit number two. Barbossa, having plenty of experience dealing with hung-over pirates, motioned to Jack to get some water. After searching the cluttered drawers, he managed to find a plain wooden cup, filled it at an amazing device called a faucet, and passed it to Balthier, who drank it very slowly, gagging. "Thanks, mate." he began casting Esuna again, this time the spell taking properly, and his creased brow relaxed.

"We'll be waiting for you in the cockpit." Elizabeth said, marching out of the kitchen. Balthier's lip twitched as he pushed into the bathroom.

* * *

The cold water pounding on his forehead eased away the last remnants of his hangover, though he cast Esuna on himself one more time to be sure. Balthier stepped out of the shower, methodically pulling on his clothes with deft, precise movements. He could no longer smell the liquor permeating his skin, and his five senses still remained very much heightened from his little jaunt as a flesh eating zombie. Maybe Fran would let him drive the airship now, though he hated to think of their destination.

Giruvegan. When Balthier was sixteen, his father, Doctor Cid, had made the journey to the city of the Occuria, and come back a changed man, twisted by the nethicite and the whispers of the Heretic, Venat. He had gone to Giruvegan to find power, and power he had found. Balthier shook his head, his earrings clinking together quietly. He was twenty eight now, though he still looked twenty-five (He had Calypso to thank for that), and his father was dead, but still, he was haunted by flickering visages with winged armor and glowing yellow eyes. Bespectacled men vanishing into shining crystals plagued his dreams, when he chose to sleep.

"Still I run from the past, though cutting my ties I have tried." he muttered, combing his hair. "Will it never end?"

* * *

Please review!


	2. Too Young

When I was writing this, I was listening to the song _It's about Time_ by Barcelona, and I thought, This is totally Bal's theme song. One of the lines that I thought fit him best was:

_There's been too many times/ when I've drowned you with these perfect lines and/_

_You've heard me say that I can cure you._

_This morning I woke up with this/ overwhelming fear of love and I/_

_Don't know if I can resurrect you…_

Yeah… that's my beef. Thank you, **ElTangoDeRoxanne **for being the first reviewer! Cyber cookies for you.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

Jack stared down at the world passing by at extreme speeds below. Elizabeth shut her eyes tight, stomach churning. Barbossa enjoyed the ride, watching the clouds whipping past the windows. They were currently onboard the _Strahl_, occupying three of the six passenger seats, while Fran sat in the co-pilot's chair and Balthier skillfully navigated the Strahl through the turbulent winds. Finally, they dropped through the cloud layer to reveal a huge, snow covered canyon, and Balthier steered them down toward a narrow chasm, dropping the anchor next to a glowing blue crystal with a metallic clang. As they disembarked, Balthier slid his finger along a luminous, rectangular prism mounted on a gold chain around his neck, and the _Strahl _vanished. He tucked the prism, apparently the ship's key, into his shirt.

"What be this shinin' jewel?" Barbossa asked, nodding toward the crystal.

"It's a Replenishing Crystal." Balthier said. "If one member of the party touches it, the entire party is healed of any ailments. Go on, try it." Barbossa laid a grubby palm on the crystal's surface. He was surprised by the fact that it wasn't cold, despite being left in the middle of a snowy rift, and was actually quite warm. It seemed as if pure life energy was flowing into him through his palm, and he flexed his fingers, enjoying the feeling.

"We head Southeast into the Feywood, and from there, through the Mist and into Giruvegan." Fran called over the howl of the Paramina blizzard. "Stay close! If you get lost, you will never be found!" Balthier checked the straps on his shoulder pack. It contained food enough for five people, his ration being an emergency ration should they run out of food, because he did not have to eat unless he wanted to. There were extra pouches of shot, a quiver of arrows, a few items to relieve status ailments, and — Balthier frowned. A wrench? Nono must be reminding him not to do anything stupid. He was jerked back to reality when Fran suddenly knocked an arrow to her bowstring.

"_Balthier, there is danger nearby_." she whispered in Vieran. Balthier scented the wind, parting his lips to draw the frigid air in through his mouth and taste for any foes. He didn't know how Fran managed to smell anything over the stench of Jack and Barbossa (at least Elizabeth had a sense of hygiene), or see past her nose through the blinding snow, or even hear anything over the roaring wind, but he trusted her judgment. If he tried hard enough, he could sense a Skeleton Warrior nearby. Sure enough, with a clatter of bones, the armored skeleton rose out of the snow.

The first thing Jack did when he saw the undead was crack a joke. "Well look, Hector, Balthy, it's your cousin!"

"I'm not cursed no more!" Barbossa yelled, slashing at it with his sword.

"I'm not a skeleton!" Balthier snapped, dodging a spear strike. Suddenly, the warrior glowed with power raising its spear high over his head. Balthier shut his eyes, throwing his arm over his face to protect himself from the spell that was coming.

"Don't look!" Fran cried, just as a brilliant white flash sparked from the end of the skeleton's spear. Elizabeth and Barbossa froze, while Jack swung his sword in random directions, cursing. Balthier swiftly put the Skeleton Warrior back where it belonged (in the underworld) with a gunshot to the head. It crumbled into pieces, its skull disintegrating to relinquish a piece of Dark magicite. Fran plucked it from the snow, putting it in Balthier's shoulder bag.

"Ffamran? What's happened? I can't see." Elizabeth called.

"You have been blinded by the Warrior's Flash attack." Fran explained. "Hold still and don't move. I will heal you." Under her care, she cleared Jack and Barbossa's eyes using Blindna, while Balthier administered eye drops to Elizabeth, not wanting to waste his Mist Energy.

"I forgot to warn you; we aren't the only people out here who can do Magick now. You might as well get used to being blasted with fire, blinded, poisoned, knocked out, or warped into other dimensions, along with anything else you might think of." Balthier said. Elizabeth blinked a few stray drops out of her eyes.

"Thanks for the late warning." she said grumpily, rubbing her hands together to ward off the chill seeping into them.

"How far be this Feywood you spoke of? I'd like to get meself out of this blizzard a'fore I freeze to death." Barbossa remarked, shivering. Balthier felt a stab of pity for the Caribbean pirates, who had never really dealt with weather like this except for the one voyage to Davy Jones's Locker.

"It is close now, just beyond that cliff." Fran said. They hurried toward it, narrowly avoiding a fight with a huge King Aevis that Balthier and Fran could have easily taken down alone, but would clearly be too much for the other pirates to handle at the moment, partially frozen as they were. After a few more battles with various other skeletons that rose out of the ground, one of which involved Jack being Silenced, to Barbossa and Elizabeth's glee, they arrived at the border of the Feywood.

Thick, green gold mist whispered through the snow covered trees, reflecting phantom images of things that were and weren't there at them from every angle. Balthier activated his Libra technick, traps instantly jumping into view. Was it just him, or were there _more_ since the last time they had passed this way?

"Follow in a line, just behind me. This place is riddled with traps." he said.

"Couldn't you just do that walk on air thing like you did when we took down Davy Jones?" Jack asked. Balthier shook his head.

"It takes Mist energy to cast the spell, and there is a finite source of that in a man." he said, picking his way around another glowing red circle on the ground. "I hope that the gate into the city is still open. I would hate to have to go find Ashe and tell her we need to borrow Belias to open the gate into Giruvegan."

"Ashe?" Elizabeth asked.

"The Queen of Dalmasca. I would think she would throw you in prison as soon as look at you, Balthier." Fran said with the shadow of a smile.

"Can't blame a Queen's duty to justice." Barbossa remarked.

They continued walking, until heavy footfalls warned them that they were not alone. Out of the Feywood mists, a Golem loomed. Elizabeth froze again as it walked by on its long, shambling hands of wood. She was a brave woman, but the only living thing she had seen larger than the Golem was the Kraken. Too bad for her, many of the creatures in Ivalice were the same size as the Golem or larger. They snuck by it, finally passing into the area leading into the ice field guarding the entrance to Giruvegan. Balthier touched the Replenishing Crystal they found there.

"This is a safe zone, guarded by the Crystal's energy. We should rest here tonight before going on." Fran suggested. No one argued against her decision, and in moments, they started a small fire, and huddled around it for warmth. Everyone sat a little farther from Balthier, his deathly cold body temperature not desirable in the close to freezing environs of the Feywood. For dinner, a Mu that had fallen into one of Fran's cleverly hidden traps roasted over the fire, and Jack tested the meat, sinking a dagger into the little body to make sure there was no blood left inside that could possibly poison them or make them ill. Even though it had been deemed clean, it still tasted horrid, as did the vegetation they had foraged, and the meal was eaten in silence as everyone tried to choke it down. The disgusting taste was washed away with snow on the ground, and they lay down to sleep, Balthier taking watch. Eventually, he, too, drifted to sleep, more out of boredom than anything else, his back to the bright blue Crystal.

* * *

The next morning found the party tramping from pedestal to pedestal in a snow covered, foggy field, searching for the entrance to Giruvegan.

"The Ice Field of Clearsight— clearsight! I don't know about you all, but this is the least clear sight I have ever had." Jack grumped, shaking his head.

"The pedestals show the way, though you have to look through the pillars just so to find the right path." Balthier explained as they worked together to bring down a rather stubborn Behemoth. Balthier had cast Lure upon himself, and was taking all the heavy hits, while Jack, Elizabeth, and Barbossa rained their own blows down on the beast's head and shoulders as it bent over to smash its gigantic sword on Balthier again. The sky pirate dodged out of the way before he was pulverized, managing to shoot the Behemoth in the eye as he did so. It gave a deafening scream, purple blood flying everywhere, staining the snow with the boiling hot fluid.

Barbossa finally managed to get into the Behemoth's new blind spot and shoved his cutlass into its throat, with a bellow. The monster gave another gurgling scream, before collapsing, dead. For a moment, they all lay in the snow next to the gigantic corpse, too tired from the battle to move, before Fran cast Cura on them, rejuvenating their wills to keep going. Elizabeth climbed to her feet, brushing snow from her backside.

"If every battle is like this, I might well give up life as a pirate and become a civilian for good." she grumbled. Jack's eyes glinted mischievously.

"I thought you had a son?" he asked. Barbossa looked at her strangely, Fran raised an eyebrow, and Balthier smirked when she blushed.

"He's… I have left him with my old maid, from when I lived with my father, the Governor. I couldn't stay away from the sea." she whispered. "When this is done, I will go visit him, and we will see Will together when he returns for his day ashore."

"Is that why you seek eternal youth? To be with Will forever?" Fran asked. Elizabeth nodded.

"Your loyalty to him is admirable." the Viera replied simply, before walking toward the pedestal to view the next path. "The doors to Giruvegan lie just ahead. Let us hope that the Fountain lies within, as we suspect."

Even after all the years since Fran and Balthier had gone there with Basch, Ashe, Vaan and Penelo, the great gate of Giruvegan remained open to them, and they hurried through, stepping into a stone city filled with clear, glass waters and a crystal blue sky. Balthier trotted down the familiar walk toward the Waystone at the water's edge, the others trailing behind, taking in the sight of the ancient city with awe. Jack dipped his fingers into the water at the path's edge. "It's warm!" he exclaimed, staring back at the gate where snow piled near the entrance.

"It is heated by the Mist." Fran said, also bending to touch the water. Now Balthier knew how Fran felt when she was exposed to so much Mist. Being linked to her very soul, he had become slightly more like her in the fact that he was now much more sensitive to the substance. The Mist of Giruvegan was stifling, making it somewhat hard to breathe. It was as if an invisible hand had very gently closed around his neck— not very threatening, but uncomfortable nonetheless.

"Hurry up or I shall leave you all behind." Balthier said, massaging the medallion imbedded in his chest absentmindedly. They clustered around the glowing device, and he brushed it with his fingers. With a jolt, they were whisked across the water to the next floating island. They sprinted down the long walkway, for the joy of feeling the wind on their faces, before arriving panting at the next Waystone. The statue of Daedalus was still there, just as Balthier and Fran remembered it, and they sat in his shade, reminiscing of times long past, until Barbossa and Jack became restless and bade that they move on.

The inner city was as dark and filled with monsters as ever. Elizabeth stared at the yawning chasm below. "Careful, lass, it be a long way down." Barbossa pulled her back from the edge. Elizabeth shrugged his hand off.

"I would not be so foolish." she said haughtily, before following Balthier and Fran as they meandered down the water steps. Fran gestured into the gloom over their heads.

"If the Fountain of Youth existed here, then a pool must be at the bottom. We go down, toward the Crystal Core." she said decisively, making for the invisible path. Balthier grabbed her arm.

"I don't think it's that path." he said. "That one goes down, granted, but why are there two Mythril Golems over there?" he pointed toward an empty stretch of wall.

"Why not find out?" Jack asked, unsheathing his sword and charging the Golems. He gave a cry of surprise as a great stream of fire issued from the construct, and he quickly dropped to the ground, rolling the flames out.

"I _told _you to be careful!" Balthier snapped, as Fran cast Shellga to protect them from any further magic attacks. The second magic that came bowling at them, Thundara, bounced off the shield harmlessly. Barbossa pulled a small grenade from his jacket, using a match he struck on the floor to light it, and hurled it at the Golem with all his might. The resulting explosion actually knocked it back a step, and Jack took advantage to jump onto its chest, straddling the giant shoulders of the sentient blocks of metal and stone. The Mythril Golem gave a grinding shriek as it tried to shake him off, but Jack clung to it like a barnacle.

"Jack!" Elizabeth screamed in terror for his health, but the pirate ignored her, taking his dagger and jamming it in the crack between its chin and neck. With a heave, he managed to pop its head off, levering it out of the socket using his dagger as a lift. The Golem gave a metallic groan, staggering, before falling forward with a resounding crash! Jack leaped clear before he was smashed under the body, giving a tucked roll to soften his landing.

"Quite a performance." Balthier nodded his approval, before shooting the second Golem in the chest with aqua shot. Fran finished it with a powerful Water spell.

"Show-offs." Jack grumbled, but Fran was already examining the wall.

"This wall is actually a door: there is a sigil here, binding the door shut. It is activated using Magick. I wonder…" Fran traced the sigil for water in the air, and the rune on the door lit up in reaction to it, ponderously grinding open. Voices sounded in their heads as they stepped through the doorway.

_"Deep in the heart of the city drowned in Mist, Eternal life awaits those with the courage to take it truly."_

A golden glow reflected off the walls, shining from somewhere deep in the depths of the passageway. Luckily, there were no enemies in the tunnel, but they couldn't shake the feeling that they were not alone.

"So," Balthier began conversationally, despite the fact that the hair on the back of his neck was on end, "What'll you do with eternal life and eternal youth, men— and woman, pardon me, Elizabeth."

"Sail the seas an' never leave. I like me freedom. And probably explore all of Ivalice while I'm at it." Jack stated. Fran's ear twitched. Jack reminded her a lot of Balthier: they were dogs branded under the name of pirate for adventure and freedom, though they did not necessarily steal all that much. Barbossa was the opposite.

"I would amass a treasure wot like I had on Isla de Muerta afore I was killed an' the island sank into the sea." he said. Jack snorted.

"You do that, mate, and when you're done, might you invite me to share in the spoils?" he asked. Barbossa looked at him with eyes that clearly asked, _what do you think, idiot?_

"I will bring some water back to my son, and we shall stay with Will for eternity." Elizabeth said wistfully. "I will never leave him." Balthier scratched his head.

"Just remember, people, I don't think this Water of Youth can keep you from dying on your own. It'll just make you young and alive until the end of time, but if your brains get blown out, you'll be more dead then a doornail." he said.

"I'll keep that in mind." Jack quipped.

"Didn't your alter-ego drop it in the _Flying Dutchman_?"

"Shut up."

Balthier continued leading them down the passage, which seemed to stretch on for an eternity, a crooked smile on his face.

* * *

The Fountain, at last. It was not exactly how they had imagined it, or at least how the Caribbean pirates did. Balthier and Fran, not having heard of it before they met in Ivalice, hasn't known what to expect, but the fountain in front of them looked far from godly.

A shallow pool had been hewn into the wall, creating a sort of alcove set apart from the rest of the cave, and incandescent golden yellow water dripped from a crack in the slimy ceiling, keeping the pool full. Jack frowned.

"It looks like piss-water." he said.

"Ar, well I do know me a tale where the Water of Youth is the excrement of the—" Barbossa began, a wicked smile on his face.

"I DON'T NEED TO KNOW!" Elizabeth shouted, her voice bouncing and echoing endlessly in the cave.

"Fine then. Well? Who's going to take the first drink? Someone should test it to make sure it's not actually poison or somethin' like that." Barbossa said. All eyes slid to Balthier, who blinked, gulped, and began to edge backward.

"Me? I'm not interested in living forever, lucrative as it sounds." he stammered.

"If what you say about how the sea goddess Calypso bound you to Fran and all is true, then even if it is poisoned, you won't die." Elizabeth pointed out. Balthier rolled his eyes.

"No one thinks about my feelings! 'Let's give it to poor Balthier, he can't die!'" Balthier pantomimed them. "Don't you know how uncomfortable dying is? Or feeling poison coursing through your veins like fire while you're Silenced and not able to get relief from the pain? I don't know if you know this, but I feel pain, I really do."

Fran shook her head. "You should wait to drink the water." she said calmly, as was her wont. "It was too easy for us to come here: the doors to Giruvegan were wide open, and only the usual creatures were there to meet us. Even the door to the passage was bound with only a water seal: an easy spell, and a predictable one." Just as she finished speaking, a laughing, bubbly voice rang out.

"Smarty Viera, good for you, you figured it out!" Out of the yellow water, a figure comprised completely of swirling, bubbling water rose. It had no legs, just water flowing down or up into the pool, and a vaguely human torso and head.

"What are you?" Elizabeth asked, intrigued.

"A water god. I heard o' them before. I should have suspected there would be one here." Barbossa said.

"Ah, the Hume is smart, too." the water god sighed, crossing its arms. "Why do you come here, to my humble abode?"

"We have come to partake of the Fountain of Youth." Elizabeth said firmly. The god swiveled to face her slightly, then recited the words they had heard upon entering:

"_Deep in the heart of the city drowned in Mist, Eternal life awaits those with the courage to take it truly._ Well, Humes, Viera? Do you have the courage to take eternal life?"

"I do." the Caribbean pirates chorused. The water god shrugged. "Then take it. I care not."

"Really?" Jack asked, his brows bunching.

"Why not? I don't care what you do with your life." the god said. When they approached, it only moved back to allow them more room at the pool. Balthier frowned. Something didn't feel right.

_Too easy_… he thought. Just as Jack bent his head to drink, the water god laughed, a cavernous booming noise, and roared,

"Do you really think I would let you gain the life of the gods so easily? Think again!" Jack jumped backward just in time to avoid getting impaled on a blue spike of ice that suddenly sprouted out of the floor.

"The water god plays false! To arms!" Barbossa bellowed, drawing his own cutlass. When he slashed at the god, the sword just passed through the water, splashing, and it laughed menacingly, before sending a wall of icy water to crush him. But Barbossa was a sea pirate, and a little water did not scare him. He emerged from the ice bath, puffing and blowing, before charging back into the fray. Fran now readied a spell, Thundaga, and the air was filled with crackling electricity. The lightning bolt arced through the air, striking the water god full on, but nothing happened, and now it sent electrically charged water at them as an attack. In fact, the show of magick even seemed to enrage it, and the attacks were coming faster and stronger.

Balthier cast Flare now, ignoring the sap spell attempting to gnaw on his nonexistent life force. The water god screamed as the extreme heat evaporated his body away, but reformed out of the vapors as quickly as he'd vanished. When the god tossed Death his way, he felt a twinge of pain in his medallion heart, but nothing else otherwise when the spell simply melted off him.

By stroke of genius, Fran cast Blizzaga, freezing the waters of the fountain and the god in it. They sighed in relief, sinking to the ground to rest in their brief respite.

"Now what? It clearly doesn't want us here." Balthier panted.

"We aren't leaving. We've come this far, we've found the fountain, and I'm leaving with _something_." Jack said, crossing his arms.

"You will leave with something, your life!"

"_But he wants eternal life…"_ the water god's voice sighed. The party leaped to their feet, drawing weapons as the ice imprisoning the god melted away. _"Childish, really, for time will march on, and death waits at the end of all paths."_ A spell glowed between its hands, a golden orb of dancing light. And for some reason, that light was even more terrifying then Davy Jones.

"_I chose to enact this punishment, to reveal what Hume hubris has wrought. A fitting one, I think, to put upon the Hume children of Ivalice, though I choose the Viera instead. See how your greed affects others of your world!"_ With that, the water god released the curse spell, throwing it toward Fran, who seemed frozen. She could only watch as the spell came closer and closer, the light reflecting in her eyes.

"Fran!" Suddenly, Balthier was there, pushing her out of the way. She fell to the floor with a grunt, catching herself before she hit her head, and now watched with abject horror as the spell contacted Balthier instead. The light sank into his body, and he twitched as the magic rushed through him like a thundering river. Then he began to shine with brilliant white luminescence, so bright that no one could see what was happening.

Laying her ears back against the deafening amounts of noise, which included rushing water, cracking ice, a laughing god, and Balthier's agonized cries, Fran felt forward in the whiteness, until she came up against someone's body. By his scent she knew it was Balthier, and he had stopped screaming and now only moaned thinly as she grabbed him and threw him over her shoulder. He was surprisingly light, barely taking any strength to lift, and she was able to hold him in one arm while she grabbed the hand of Elizabeth, who in turn made a chain with Jack and Barbossa, and led them at a full on sprint from the cave.

* * *

They lie on the walkway of the Gate of Earth, next to Giruvegan Gate Crystal. Fran touched it, feeling relief as healing energy flowed through her body, and the smaller body she cradled against her chest. When her vision, which had been lost when Balthier had taken the spell in her place, returned, she stared down at the person in her arms.

It was a Hume boy of about sixteen, with six pairs of earrings and a burned metal clover dangling from his ears. His clothes, which were too big for him, were awfully familiar: a gold and green vest, a white shirt, and black pants covered with shin guards. His shoes, which were made of steel, hung from feet too small to fill them completely.

It was Balthier, but his face was slightly different. His chin had a more juvenile point to it, his jaw less square. This was how she remembered he looked, eleven years ago, when she had first met him in the streets of Archades. This was how Ffamran had looked, not Balthier. Innocent. Fran allowed herself to trail a brown finger along the side of his face, which was cold. For a moment, fear gripped her, until she pulled his vest off and lifted his shirt to check on the medallion. It was still there, firmly imbedded in his chest, and she breathed a sigh of relief. Eventually, he began to stir, first his lips moving, then his eyelids fluttering. Elizabeth and Jack clustered around him, but Barbossa pulled them back.

"The lad be needin' some air when he wakes. Best not to spook him." he warned.

Balthier opened his eyes slowly, staring at Fran through honey brown eyes that were full of anything but innocence. His razor sharp cunning shone like a beacon out of his face. "W-where are we?" he croaked, his voice hoarse. Fran held a flask of water to his lips, and he took a long drink.

"_Be calm, Ffamran. We are in Giruvegan, but when you are well we shall go back to the _Strahl _through the Paramina rift._" she whispered to him in Vieran.

"_Eih._" he gave managed to give his assent, before sitting up and rubbing his head. "_I feel like I was stepped on by the Behemoth King…_" he groaned, swiftly returning to his usual self. Fran handed him a Hi-potion, and he drank it as quickly as possible, almost choking at the bitter, herbal taste, but his hands, which had been shaking madly from weakness, stilled, and Fran helped him up so that he could touch the Gate Crystal himself. Balthier rested his forehead against the warm crystal, staring at his reflection in its orange depths. His reaction was collected and controlled, though Fran suspected that when he was alone he would have a wild fit and surely break something, as he was prone to do when enraged. For now, he rolled up his pants, out of the way of his feet, and kicked off his shoes.

"You would walk the Paramina Rift barefoot?" she asked as he tucked the footwear into the shoulder pack that had thankfully not been lost.

"They are in the way. Besides, I don't feel the cold much." Balthier replied. Jack came up to him now, looking down to see him eye to eye.

"I'm sorry, mate. 'Twas my fault you're like this, what with searchin' for the Fountain and all."

"Don't be." Balthier was irked that he had to look up to look Jack in the face. The man was taller than him by about seven inches now. "I was the one who had to be heroic, leading man and all."

"What now?" Elizabeth asked. "You're a child, and we're far from the _Strahl_, getting there involving a trek through the Feywood. I don't think you're ready for that."

"Don't go maternal on me, Elizabeth. Might I remind you I'm twenty-eight, _not_ sixteen?" Balthier snapped, pulling his sleeves up past his hands to leave them free.

"There is another way. We can teleport using this Gate Crystal to Mt. Bur-Omisace, and go back through the Rift." Fran said. Jack eyed the crystal warily.

"Isn't that the thing Balthier said dumped him in Port Royal the first time?" he asked. "I'm not sure about it. I've had enough magick for one day." Barbossa punched him.

"And I suppose you want to go back through the Feywood, fighting those huge Golems and hell-dogs and what-have-you, wot with Balthier out of commission and Fran tryin' to help him? I don't feel much like dyin' at the moment." the pirate said angrily. Jack rubbed his stomach.

"Fine, fine, but when we are blown to smithereens, I shall have had the last word." he sighed, closing his eyes as Fran touched a Teleport Stone to the Gate Crystal. In a flash, along with the uncomfortable feeling that they were dropping through the air, they found themselves back at Bur-Omisace. The city was nearly abandoned, only the Kiltias and a few haggard refugees wandering amongst the ruined tents. The gate into the Hall of Light was sealed shut still and guarded by the Nu Mou, though people clustered on the steps, deep in prayer.

"What happened here?" Elizabeth whispered, as rain pelted their faces. The air was heavy with sorrow, and it was as if the very sky was weeping in lamentation.

"Five years ago, this was the place where the Gran Kiltias of Ivalice resided, Anistasis, a Helgas Dreamweaver who aided us in retrieving the Sword of Kings, the nethicite cutter. When the Archadian Imperials attacked, Judge Magister Bergen rampaged, slaughtering everybody in his way. We… we arrived too late to save Anistasis, who has been enshrined inside the Hall of Light." Balthier said bitterly.

"And Bergen?" Barbossa asked, cocking his head knowingly.

"Dead. We killed him." Fran said, walking to Gurdy, the Moogle who ran the chocobo stables. "We'll need two chocobos, one them the strongest you have to offer, enough to carry three people at once."

Gurdy's eyes bulged. "Three people, k-kupo?" she asked. Fran nodded.

"My three companions do not know how to ride, only myself and Ffamfrit do." she explained. Gurdy made to protest more, but when Fran handed her an extra hundred gil, she sighed.

"Very well, a chocobo for Lady Fran, and a strong one for Master Ffamfrit. I hope he can handle it, kupo, he's such a tiny little boy." the Moogle conceded, leading a large chocobo from the compound and putting the reins into Balthier's hands. When Gurdy was out of earshot, he turned to Fran, raising an eyebrow.

"Ffamfrit? What brought that on?" he asked.

"No one must know of your fate. Ffamfrit, the Darkening Cloud, is your namesake, is it not? And now, he shall be your cover." Fran said. "Jack, you shall ride with me." she helped the pirate scramble over the bird's broad back and onto the saddle. "Elizabeth, Barbossa, you're with Balthier."

Once the two pirates were precariously perched in the saddle, Balthier swung himself onto the bird with no assistance whatsoever. It _kweh_'d loudly, turning around to glare at him with a critical eye. He stared right back, and the bird eventually looked away and flapped its wings irritably, but made no other form of protest.

It was a good thing they chose to ride back to the _Strahl_; in the blizzard, there were elementals, crocs, and Yetis that looked as if they wanted to give chase but didn't as the chocobos ran too fast for them. Elizabeth's arms were like iron vices on Balthier's waist, where she clung for dear life.

"That's definitely not like riding a horse." she gasped when they returned to the ship. Balthier slapped the chocobo's flank as it trotted back to the stables.

"We have things like horses here: Sleipnirs and Mesmenirs, carnivorous creatures with backs covered in an iron carapace. I wouldn't recommend riding them, if I were you. I still have scars." he joked. Fran's eyebrows threatened to vanish into her helm.

"I thought you smarter than to attempt _riding_ a Sleipnir." she said. "When did you do that?"

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Balthier asked, stroking the key around his neck and opening the_ Strahl_, stomping up the stairs and vanishing into his cabin, slamming the door with a bang.

* * *

Reviews are much appreciated.


	3. Meeting with Larsa

Thanks to **ElTangoDeRoxanne** for the review! And I'm too lazy to say anything here besides:

Disclaimer: I do not own Final Fantasy XII or Pirates of the Caribbean.

* * *

"Well, what now?" Balthier wrapped his hand in white gauze after he finished picking the pieces of his most recent victim to his frustration out of his knuckles— a mirror. The shattered glass had been cleaned up and disposed of, and now Balthier was left to bandage his split knuckles.

"We lost the battle with the water god because we were careless. We did not think to prepare for it." Fran said, tapping the kitchen table they now clustered around with a two inch long claw. Balthier stared moodily into his cup of water, wishing dearly it was ale or Madhu, but Fran wouldn't let him drink at the moment. He severely wanted to drown his sorrows in alcohol, but he doubted anyone would sell to a sixteen year old, not even in Balfonheim.

"A lack of information, hm?" he said contemplatively. "So we have to go do research?"

"It would appear so." Elizabeth said, combing her hair which was wet from her recent shower. Jack, as it turned out, when properly cleaned, was several shades less tan than he looked, and Barbossa's age lines not so deep. "But where would we go?"

"The easiest place to go would be the old Bunansa House, then, in Tsenoble. The library is pretty extensive." Balthier said, setting his cup down with a clack. "While we're there, perhaps I can pick up some clothes that fit better. If no one's stolen them."

"Good plan." Fran agreed. "However, how are we going to get into Tsenoble? Jules stole your bag of chops."

"Those? Those were just bits of pine scraps from an old lumber yard. I know better than to trust that street rat." Balthier grinned, plopping a sweet smelling bag of pine chops on the table. When Fran opened it, not only did pine chops spill out, but a few sandalwood chops did as well.

"You've been busy. When did you get the time to amass these?" she asked.

"I've held on to them, in the event that I ever needed to go back to Archades." he replied, as she swept the chops back into the bag. "Now, lets get going, shall we? The sooner we defeat that water god, the sooner I'll be back to normal, and the better." He stood up quickly, nearly tripping on his pants that were still too long, but managed to catch himself before he looked undignified.

To his mortification, he discovered that he was just a hair too short to properly see the dashboard of the _Strahl_, or out of the windows in order to steer. Balthier compensated by adding an extra cushion on top of the seat to boost him higher, but felt his face flush as the other occupants of the ship sniggered. "I hate being sixteen. Worst year of my life, as I recall." he scowled at the pillow underneath him.

They entered the crowded airspace above Archades surreptitiously, having gained a few more charges on their heads even after being pardoned as a reward for saving Ivalice. Jack stared at all the airships whizzing by below. "Bugger, look at all of 'em!" he exclaimed. "I've never seen so many different kinds of ships since Shipwreck Cove."

"Archades is the capital of the largest empire in the world: the Archadian empire." Fran said softly, her hands expertly adjusting things on her co-pilot panel.

"Sounds like England." Elizabeth mused.

Balthier eased the _Strahl _into the docking clamps, which closed around the ship with a pneumatic hiss. "Right. Archades is a dangerous place for those loose with their gossip. People here will do anything for a chop, and the competition to move up in the world is quite vicious. I suggest you stay close to Fran and I. We'll buy you something that'll make you stand out less as sea dogs. That ought to keep them from latching on to you." he said.

Fran nodded. "Let's get going. We have to leave and come back before the Imperials realize we've been here."

* * *

Once on the streets of Archades, Jack struggled to keep himself from rushing around wildly, exploring, or swiping from the civilians milling around. Barbossa ignored the stares they received from the passing Ardents and Gentry. Suddenly, one of the men detached themselves from the crowd, wearing the uniform of a Draklor researcher. Balthier tensed at first, then relaxed as to not appear suspicious.

"My goodness, you look the spitting image of the late Doctor Cid when he was younger!" the old man said. "He had a son, but the first ran away, Ffamran, you know? But Ffamran has been gone for eleven years now. Perhaps he had a second son? Are you, by chance, related?"

"No." Balthier said easily. "I am Ffamfrit arc Demenius, and I am not a Bunansa." he slipped into his role as a member of the Archadian Gentry as if it were nothing— in fact, he _had_ been a member of the Gentry. "But where are my manners? This is my Aunt, Isabelle, and my Uncle, Barbarossa." he nodded toward Elizabeth and Barbossa, who picked up their fake names instantly. "That fellow over there is my other uncle, Jeremy. He lives with Isabelle and Barbarossa in Balfonheim."

"A pleasure to meet you, relatives of Master Demenius." The man shook their hands warmly. "Who's that?" his eyes darted to Fran. Balthier allowed his eyes to become hard, mimicking the hate Archadians bore toward the other races of Ivalice.

"Her? She was hired on by my parents as a bodyguard. We can't pronounce her name, so we just call her Naunau." he was sure that the nomad from Giza would not mind they'd used her name as a disguise. Fran shuffled uncomfortably under the researcher's gaze, acting shy as was proper. Balthier saved her from further scrutiny by pretending to check his watch (which he did not have) and glancing toward the sun. "By the gods, is that the time? We have to buy the groceries in time for lunch!" he exclaimed, before bowing deeply to the old man. "I apologize, sir, but we have to go."

"It was a delight in talking to you." the researcher said, bowing back, and Balthier grabbed Elizabeth's hand and pulled her toward a greengrocer, saying,

"Come now, Aunt Isabelle, what shall we buy today?" They bought a few ears of corn and a sprig of green onions to add to their alibi before he dragged them toward the cab to Tsenoble.

"You did well establishing 'Ffamfrit arc Demenius' to the face of Archades." Fran murmured in his ear. "Though I must ask: Demenius? As in Cidolphus _Demen_ Bunansa?"

"It slipped out. I was improvising the act." Balthier returned as he flashed his Sandalwood chop to the cabbie. "They're with me. My relatives from Balfonheim." he clarified at the driver's raised eyebrow.

"Of course." the man opened the door, and they crowded inside.

In Tsenoble, Balthier led them down a side street to another huge avenue, and at the end was a frowning mansion. The grass had died in years of being untended to, and the bushes and trees had grown wildly out of control.

"Is that your old house? It's big and huge-ish and… it looks haunted." Jack observed.

"Maybe it is. There are ghosts in Ivalice." Balthier fingered his hidden dagger in case a ghost had really decided to inhabit the manse. It had been eleven years: one never knew. Balthier pushed the tarnished door open, wincing as it screeched horribly.

Jack was right: it did look like a haunted house. Shadows fled from the sunlight streaming in through the doorway, and a thick layer of dust had deposited itself on the floor. They could make footprints in it, it was so thick. Balthier sneezed as he passed through another large cloud of dust, feeling along the wall for the light switch. He finally pressed it, and the light crystals hummed to life.

Besides looking a little derelict, everything was just as he remembered it: the huge carved banister that he and Cid had slid down in his youth, laughing wildly, the generations of frowning Bunansa portraits hanging from the wall, ending with Cidolphus Demen Bunansa. Or it used to end with Cid. There was a new one there. Balthier frowned, using his thumb to wipe the grime off the brass nameplate. _Ffamran Mied Bunansa Archades_. With a trembling hand, he used a cuff to dust off the glass, not caring it was soiled in the process.

His own twenty-two year old face stared into the distance as he was frozen in mid step, gun in hand, running down a painted metal corridor. His eyes were very serious, though he had a smile on. His portrait was the only one smiling. From the angle, it must have been taken by one of Draklor Laboratory's security cameras. Cid had gotten someone to paint a portrait of him and mounted it on the wall. Balthier looked down. How could he have missed it? There were two footprints in the dust. Cid's footprints.

"You really did love me, you old bastard." Balthier whispered, tracing the peculiar pattern Cid's boots made. Fran put a soft hand on his arm.

"I am sorry he did not let you know, even at the end." she said.

"It's alright, I suppose. Nothing I can do about it now, any rate. He's dead." Balthier said carelessly, though he felt a lump in his throat. He led them down through the abandoned halls and into a huge library. Books covered the walls from floor to ceiling, stacked in neat piles, orderly shuffled onto shelves, heaped on tables— the Caribbean pirates had never seen so many books in one place. "I think it's by subject, then by author, then by title. Doctor Cid was fastidious about order, something he obviously did not pass on to me." Balthier said. "I'm going to get changed. I'll join you in a moment."

He climbed the stairs, his hand trailing the smooth banister, coating his fingers in a decades' worth of dust. When he reached the top, he wiped them on a handkerchief absently, staring down the long hall. Three rooms down, door on the left. He smiled when he saw the door: _Fafmarn_ had been written on a piece of paper, nearly illegible, and taped to the door, about the height of his waist. Balthier remembered writing it.

* * *

_A three-year old Ffamran toddled into Cidolphus's study, sucking his thumb and staring at his father with big, brown eyes._

"_Daddy?" Cid lay his pen down and rubbed his eyes. The boy's mother had died in childbirth, leaving only his father to take care of his needs. Why did children have so many needs?_

"_Yes, Ffamran?" he tried not to sound exasperated. What now? Perhaps the boy had come to apologize for the clever trap involving a sensor that turned off the lights in the study every time Cid sighed. He'd finally found the sensor mashed into the cap of his pen, held there by clay. _

"_Daddy, how do you write 'Ffamran'?" Cid blinked. He hadn't been expecting that at all._

"_Come here, son." Ffamran eagerly climbed into his lap, still sucking his thumb. "And stop eating your thumb, there'll be nothing left." the boy wiped his thumb off on his jacket. "Now, let's see… F… f… a…m…r…a…n." Cid copied it neatly on a piece of paper. "You try."_

_The three year old frowned at the paper before copying it down on his own piece of stationary. "I did it, I did it!" the little boy said triumphantly, waving the paper in Cid's face. His father held the paper still, scrutinizing it. He didn't have the heart to tell the exuberant child that it was spelled wrong, and that his penmanship was horrible. He _was_ only three, after all. The fact he could write anything vaguely legible was a miracle in itself._

"_Yes you did, son." He says instead, ripping some tape from a dispenser on the desk. "Why not go tape it to your door? Then you'll always be able to find your room."_

"_Okay, Daddy!"_

* * *

Balthier wiped a tear from his eye, staring as it dripped from his finger to fall with a wet _plash_ to the floor. He hadn't even realized he'd been crying. Softly, he pushed into his old room and began to rummage through his old chest of drawers, avoiding looking at any of the pictures. He didn't need to cry again.

He admired his reflection in the mirror. His new outfit included loose brown pants tucked into boots that climbed his shins, and he had tied his old shin guards to them. A little extra armor never hurt (though, maybe there was such a thing as too much armor, he thought, glancing at the frowning helm of his old Judge's armor on its stand). He still didn't do away with a white shirt, though it was only a three-quarter length sleeve, and wore a close-fitting black long-sleeved shirt underneath, armguards strapped to his forearms on top. Balthier grinned roguishly as he pulled on a pair of black gloves, slipping his rings off and tucking them in his side pouches. No more problems with fingerprints for him! He slipped back into the hall, automatically falling into a thief's crouch without thinking. His footfalls were muffled by the lush carpet lining the stairs, but he stopped before stepping down onto them, choosing instead to slide down the banister, reliving old memories, before finally rejoining them in the library.

"Find anything?" he asked. Elizabeth jumped and whirled, sighing with relief when it was only him.

"No, not even vague references. It's all things called nethicite and magicite, rocks, ores and stones in this section." she waved a hand toward the wall she had been picking through. Balthier nodded.

"Stands to reason he would have such an extensive collection." he said bitterly. "What about you, Jack, Barbossa?" The two pirates were hunched over books, bickering.

"Let's get Balthy to tell us what this is! It's all Greek to me." Jack was saying.

"I'm tellin' you it's airship design, that's what it is! I'm not an illiterate!" Barbossa snapped. Balthier peered at the book from behind the pirate's elbow.

"Airship design though… by the gods!" he pulled the book Barbossa had been looking at toward him. "This is the original blueprint for _Bahamut_ class airships!"

"_Bahamut_? Sounds like some kind of god." Jack remarked.

"It is, the name of the Dragon Lord of old." Balthier said absently. "No wonder he needed the Sun-Cryst to power this thing, the aerodynamics are terrible!" a side of the sky pirate not many people saw was coming to light. His engineer's mind was clicking into gear as he poured over Doctor Cid's spidery scrawl. "He should have added airfoils. That would have taken the stress off the glossair rings to provide lift, then streamlined the design..."

"I take it this will not aid us in finding a way to defeat the water god." Fran gently pulled him back into reality. "I found naught."

"I should have known. I suppose _Doctor_ Cid would not have been interested in myths and legends. A man of science, he was." Balthier sighed. "The next best place would be the Imperial Library and Archives, located inside the Imperial Palace. However, that is closed to the public. Only the royals and other higher-ups are allowed in there."

Fran cocked her head. "Higher-ups like the Judges?" Balthier had a sinking feeling as he nodded. "It may be a time to pay a visit to Larsa and his Honor Gabranth, then, but we cannot just walk up to the palace doors. We would be arrested immediately. Balthier, you still have your armor, do you not?" An image of the black and red armor flashed in front of his eyes.

"You can't mean you want me to disguise myself as a Judge and get us into the Palace that way?" he asked. Fran sighed.

"There is no other way short of breaking and entering, and you _know_ how protective Basch is of Larsa. He will not recognize you as you are."

* * *

"May I interrupt, but what are the Judges?" Elizabeth asked curiously as Balthier struggled to lift the black and red breastplate in order to put on the suit of armor.

"The elite soldiers of the Imperial Army," Balthier puffed, finally giving up and lugging the whole stand toward his old bed, panting and blowing. "I was an unfortunate member of that organization at the young age of sixteen."

"You were a soldier!" she exclaimed. "Though, I should not be surprised. You started giving commands like one during the Brethren Court and the last battle. You even fight like one. Clean, like Norrington."

"I shall have to work on fighting messily then, won't I? As much as I respect the man, I wouldn't want to be like him." Balthier said, pushing the stand onto the bed, where the armor rang with a deafening crash. He slid into the set of plate legs, buckling on the extra metal tunic that seemed entirely unnecessary but for torturing the wearer, and began the task of trying to put on the breastplate again. "Bother! Last time I had to do all this, I had servants to help me! If I were still twenty-eight, I'd be strong enough to lift this armor."

"If you were twenty-eight, you wouldn't fit in this armor, mate." Jack said, finally taking pity on him and helping him. He was not acting when it came to the sheer weight of the item, and as both of them, with Barbossa's help, latched the armor in place, Jack could only imagine the burden on sixteen-year-old arms.

"How are you going to get inside? It isn't so easy to dress up as a soldier and say you're a soldier without people askin' who you are." Barbossa pointed out.

"Once inside, we shall ask for Gabranth, a Judge Magister who is actually a friend of ours disguised as his twin brother. He would grant us audience with Larsa, who would then be able to allow us access into the archives." Fran said. "Now, we must find you three more respectable clothing as to pass for the family of 'Judge Ffamfrit arc Demenius', touring the palace." Jack's face fell.

"Dress-up. I hate dress-up." he muttered. "What about you, Fran? You can't act as a bodyguard. I should think that an Imperial elite would not need one."

"I will act as a servant to the family." Fran replied.

* * *

It was finally time to leave. Jack and Barbossa were dressed in the respectable clothing of the gentry. At Fran's insistence, Jack had undone his dreadlocks and beard and combed them into a semblance of order, pulling his long, straight, _clean_ hair up into a ponytail tied with a black satin ribbon Balthier had dug up from somewhere in the mansion. And they had brushed their teeth.

"I feel too hygienically friendly." Jack complained.

"It only be for a few days." Barbossa said, looking equally as uncomfortable.

They had managed to fit Elizabeth into one of Balthier's mother's gowns, and she gasped for breath as Fran pulled the laces at the back of the corset tight. "There is a reason I do not wear one of these anymore, and it is because… it is so hard… to breathe!" she panted, laying a hand on her chest as she struggled for air. The Viera helped her into the voluminous gown next, then frowned.

"_Ffamran, something is missing_." she muttered in her native tongue.

"_I know, 'tis jewelry and a parasol, and then she shall be done up pretty as a doll._" Balthier replied, clanking over with a handful of various baubles and ornaments. He assisted Fran by showing her how the Archadian women wore them, then fixed his gauntlets on. "Bugger." he breathed, staring at his helm. "_Must_ I be a part of this farce?"

"Yes, you must. All of us are doing it, so you are going to as well." Barbossa said, dropping the helmet over Balthier's head with a clang. They heard the boy retch as the scent of metal polish assailed his sensitive nose, the retching turning to echoing sneezes in the confines of the metal helm. With one last thunderous sneeze, in which a grey cloud of dust issued from every crack in the severe looking face mask, and the sound of earrings clinking against the sides of the helm rang as his head snapped forward, Balthier strapped an intricate looking sword to his hip and led them out the door.

For a boy clad completely in metal, he could move remarkably quietly, his footsteps making barely a sound on the stone streets of Archades. As they approached the royal palace, two guards turned toward them. Jack, Barbossa, and Elizabeth stiffened; if Balthier did, it was impossible to tell, but Fran remained relaxed.

"State yer business, yer Honor!" the guard barked.

"Just visiting the Royal Palace, soldier. Is it your business to inquire as to Justice's intentions?" Balthier snarled in reply. The soldier quailed. "I could have you guarding the entrance to the Sochen Cave Palace out in the Tchita Uplands for the next year, I'll have you know. By the way, nasty fiends like to come slithering out of there quite… _frequently_." The second soldier sounded as if he wanted to wet his metal pants.

"I'm _so_ sorry sir, we never doubted you one whit!" he squeaked, and the first soldier nodded vigorously. "We'll open these gates for you right away!" He pressed a button in the soldier's box, and the gate swung open soundlessly. When the soldiers were out of earshot, Barbossa cackled delightedly.

"Nice work, _Ffamfrit_! Showed those soldiers who's the boss, did you?"

"Thank you, _Uncle_." Balthier replied, before turning the corner and almost spearing himself on one of Gabranth's horns. He caught himself before he looked a fool.

"I thought I heard someone terrifying my soldiers." Basch's gentle voice said, but Balthier could tell he was faintly displeased. "You're a slip of a man, aren't you?"

"Gabranth!" Fran strode forward, and the Judge looked up at her.

"Fran? What are you doing here? Hopefully you have come in peace instead of attempting to swipe the palace's wealth. Though, I wonder what you are doing without Balthier at your side." he remarked. Fran's glance darted toward the short judge in armor standing in front of him, but said instead,

"We would seek audience with Larsa to gain access to the libraries. Believe me when I say we come in peace."

"Do you now? And what would make a Judge, tiny thing though he is, answer to you? I smell a plot underfoot, and I don't like it." Basch drew his sword in a flash. Balthier had to admit that being younger made one faster, as he danced out of range of the strike with the agility that the twenty-eight year-old Balthier could not have possessed.

"_Move, you're in the way!_" he cried to his companions, who immediately crowded against a wall to get out of fight that was ensuing. Balthier whipped out his own sword, blocking another swing from Basch/Gabranth and spinning with it before his blade shattered from the impact. Basch was _strong_, and every strike Balthier blocked from the old knight felt as if he was blocking a fifty pound mace, not a fifteen pound sword.

"I won't let you close to Lord Larsa until you tell me why you're really here. I know the hand you have played in the history of Ivalice, Fran, but pirates cannot be held to the same code of honor as a knight. Their alliances change too easily." Basch said conversationally. Balthier smirked under his helm, though his arms were screaming from the strain of the fight. He really would have to think about getting his ninja sword, the Yagyu Darkblade, from the _Strahl_ when this was all over. For now, he felt it would be better if he announced his role in this little play before the Judge Magister beheaded him.

"Is that what you were thinking when you asked me where my allegiances lie, five years ago in Jahara?" he asked. "I _did_ ask if you wanted me to swear by your sword or something like that. I'm not unfamiliar with that aspect of knighthood." Balthier pulled his helm off, letting it clatter to the ground. Basch froze in mid-step, the sword tip raised threateningly, as his eyes widened imperceptibly behind his helmet.

"Balthier?" he asked. The sky pirate was not much to look at, presently. His wiry, short hair was plastered to his head by sweat, and more perspiration glistened on his brow. His cheeks were also red from the exertion he'd put into the fight, and he was panting like a dog who'd just run from Rabanastre to Ozmone with a stampede of Mallicants on its tail. And he was small. The Balthier Basch remembered had been about an inch taller than himself, but the lithe scrap of a boy was no taller than his shoulder. "You've… changed. Younger…" Basch removed his helm, revealing a man who looked as if he could have been quite handsome— in his youth. Now going on forty-one, the harsh life of a soldier had made him rugged and scarred, and a few new worry lines adorned his forehead.

"Too much youth is exactly the problem." Balthier grumbled, slamming his sword back into its sheath with undue force. "And I need to find a way to rectify it. I always wanted to stay young, but this is younger than desired." Basch laughed as if they had not just been trying to kill each other, patting the sky pirate on the back with a clang as gauntlet met plate mail.

"Then I shall grant you your audience with Larsa, and gladly. He has been resting in his chambers for now. Being emperor and all that is very tiring for him. He's only seventeen. I suppose you know more about being a king than I do though, Pirate King and all that."

"In name only." Balthier replied, motioning his companions to follow them as he jogged a little to keep up with Basch's huge steps. They climbed the stone stairs, Fran's clacking heels loud in their ears.

"May I inquire as to your company?" the knight asked. Balthier cursed as a bead of sweat dropped into his eyes. He shifted his helm to his other arm that he might rub the warm, salty droplet out.

"Ah… please, feel free to introduce yourselves." he muttered. "No need for false names or identities, hm, _Gabranth_?" Gabranth-who-was-not-Gabranth snorted.

"I am Elizabeth Swann, late from the Caribbean, and Pirate Lord of the South China Seas." Elizabeth said, not bothering to curtsy as she was currently preoccupied with trying not to fall up the stairs in her high heels or trip over her dress. Basch slowed his pace to allow her some respite.

"A pleasure, my lady."

"Jack Sparrow, all those things Elizabeth said except for being a Pirate Lord. Former _Captain_ of the _Black Pearl_ and now, _Captain_ of me own one man crew." Jack glared at Barbossa, who snickered. "It's your fault!"

"Who stole the charts and ran off?" Barbossa retorted.

"Who tried to run off without me?" Jack asked. The two dissolved into bickering.

"The scoundrel there is Hector Barbossa, tag-along in our journey for the Fountain of Youth." Balthier explained. Basch smiled.

"I take it you were successful?" he asked, looking down at the boy trotting to keep up.

"I'm going to have enough teasing when I go to Rabanastre looking for Vaan if I don't find anything here." Balthier groaned as they stopped outside of Larsa's door. "I don't need any more from you, old man."

* * *

"_Fran! Balthier!"_ The young emperor launched himself at the two, shrieking like a young girl. They fell to the floor in an undignified heap of arms and legs. Judge Zargabaath, Larsa's other shadow, looked horrified by the show, his helm abandoned by the windowsill. "It has been quite a while since you stopped by. What are you up to nowadays?" Larsa asked.

"Trouble, as usual." Balthier wheezed under the combined weight of armor, Larsa, and Fran. "Get off, I'm going to die." Dying jokes were always such irony, as it did not really apply to him. Larsa tugged him to his feet before noticing that they were almost the same height. "Say naught." Balthier said, his eyes glinting dangerously. Larsa laughed good naturedly before going to sit behind his desk, sweeping a pile of documents stacked on the table to the floor. Zargabaath caught them before they scattered to the winds, gently laying them down.

"I understand you are happy to see them, my Liege, but have a care towards your duties." the old Judge murmured.

"Burn duty, I have friends, too. Do I not have a duty to them as well?" Larsa asked, reclining in his chair. "The Library Archives, eh? I can't say I've seen particular things _on_ the Fountain of Youth, though it surfaces in the oldest books as vague references." He signed a writ in flowing script, and Balthier took it in a gauntleted hand. "Perhaps you will be able to make more sense of it. Your friends seem to know more of it than us."

It was Zargabaath who accompanied Larsa and the pirates to the library, making sure that the pirates kept their sticky fingers to themselves, though Balthier palmed a platinum butter knife from a passing cart without even Fran noticing. When they reached the library, the smell of old parchment was like the assault of an army on her nose, and it twitched.

"Look here." Larsa pulled a scroll, which had clearly seen better days, from a shelf. He unrolled it, revealing that it was a rubbing from another text. "I believe here is a reference to this Fountain you speak of. It is a legend of the Viera, though it is so ancient, not many know it anymore." Fran's ear twitched.

"I would see it. _The children of this Ivalice are ever changing and vain, yet we see fit to bestow upon them our favors. We give our gift to the Viera of the Wood, a gift of timelessness_ _and immortality, that they may be the keepers of hist'ry's flow. These be the words spoken unto the first Viera elder at the dawn of time._" she read, but then her brow creased. "_But the Viera stray from the path we lay before them, dispersing into the world of Hume filth and squalor. Close we the fountain of eternal life to the world, that the Viera are doomed to fade into hist'ry's weave, one more thread in the multitude of threads stretching on for eternity."_

"Gifts? Favors? Closing the Fountain of Youth?" Barbossa frowned. "Who, in this world, has the power to do that?"

"The Undying, the Occuria, who fancy themselves as the keepers of history, though they are something more like 'future's tyrants,' if you ask me. They like twisting the strings of fate, if you know what I mean." Balthier sat down heavily in a chair with a clank.

"Keep this up, and you shall sound like the old Doctor. History's reigns back in the hands of man?" Fran raised a snow white eyebrow. "The secret to the fountain would lie then with the Occuria, but I think you have had enough of gods." Balthier nodded fervently.

"Is there a way to seal gods in Ivalice?" Jack asked suddenly, the light of genius flowing from his eyes. Larsa frowned.

"Sealing…?"

"Yes. A long time ago, the pirate lords on Earth sought to tame the seas, and bound the goddess Calypso in her bones, chaining her to the land. Is there a way to trap that water god in the Fountain?" he asked.

"The gods would not like to be trapped, I do not think." Fran shook her head, but Larsa leaned forward, intrigued.

"I have heard of the like, in Giza. Vaan told me about it, a rain god called the Gil Snapper collectively. It was sealed in a pot, but you could not harm it otherwise." he said. "You are saying that mortal humes bound the goddess of the _entire sea_ to a mortal body that could be affected by physical objects?"

"That is how the story goes, yes." Barbossa replied.

"Go to Rabanastre, and find you a way to do a sealing like so. I am afraid you will find nothing like this in Archades. The Dalmascans are more of the magical sort, sorry." Larsa apologized.

"Then let's go to this Rabanastre! You said you knew a way to meet the Queen, so let's do it." Elizabeth said, taking the initiative as usual. Balthier rubbed his eyes again.

"I am afraid to do that. What's Vaan going to do when he finds out that what's happened to me?" he asked.

"That's a chance you will have to take, sonny." Jack snapped as he dragged the sky pirate from the room.

* * *

Review!


	4. Vessel to a Mad God

Yay! So thanks to **ElTangoDeRoxanne**, as usual, for her awesome, uplifting reviews:

On to the story! I don't own anything.

* * *

Balthier stared at Vaan in bewilderment as the man (he was twenty now) rolled on the dusty streets of Rabanastre in front of Migelo's Sundries, laughing wildly.

"Vaan, it's not funny." he said frigidly, wilting in the desert heat. The Caribbean pirates were at ease, seeming comfortable, even. Oh well, they were used to it, at least.

"But it is!" Vaan giggled, doubled over with laughter. "I mean, look at you! You're _adorable_!"

"I can't _believe_ I just heard that word come out of your mouth." Balthier purred. Anybody but Vaan could hear the threat that was thinly veiled in that one, velvet noise.

"But you did, and that's what makes it _funnier_!" he howled, "Did it hurt?" Then one of Balthier's gloved fists landed in his gut, sending him sprawling.

"What do you think happens when someone six feet tall is suddenly forced to become five feet four inches?" Balthier scowled.

"Looks like you didn't hit your growth spurt until later in life." Vaan sniggered.

"Why you—!" The boy sky pirate was white with fury as he launched himself at his former sort-of-apprentice. Penelo leaned out from behind the counter to view the spectacle. The duo had long given up pirating and now led a respectable lifestyle running Migelo's old business. That didn't mean that they did not back pirates, though, and found themselves offering shelter to Balthier and Fran on more than one occasion when the two had to lay low. Vaan now lay on the ground wheezing instead of laughing.

"We need to see Queen Ashe, savvy?" Jack leaned over the prone boy, who stared up at him glassily.

"Ashe doesn't talk to us anymore." he said sadly. Fran cocked her head.

"Why?"

"She says she can't be caught consorting with pirates. But we're not pirates, not anymore." Vaan sat up, dusting street grime from his shirt. "You, on the other hand, are going to need help if you want to meet her. Both of you are still at large." he shoved a poster into Balthier's hands, and the recipient dropped his gaze to look into a crude sketch of his own face, with the words WANTED stamped across the top. Balthier's eyes widened slightly at the bounty.

"Ten million gil? For… poaching, kidnapping, thievery, hostage taking, counterfeiting, smuggling…" the list went on and on. By the time he was finished reading, his eyebrows were almost in his hairline. Jack shook his head.

"You've got a list longer than I do!" the pirate exclaimed. Balthier handed the poster back to Vaan.

"Think you can get close to the palace with a list like that and a bounty that high?" Vaan asked.

"I was hoping you'd help." Balthier mumbled. Vaan went back behind the counter to sit with Penelo, who smiled at him.

"Can you guys play any instruments?" Vaan asked suddenly. Balthier raised an eyebrow.

"Violin, piano." he replied.

"Lyre." Fran said simply.

"Piano, harp." Elizabeth listed.

"Fiddle." Jack shrugged.

"Pipe." Barbossa answered. Vaan clapped his hands.

"We have an orchestra!" he cried. "I can play a drum… badly. But it's enough." He got up to get the listed instruments out of a cabinet in the back of the store.

"That's great, but why do we need these?" Elizabeth asked.

"It's your way in. The Queen's birthday party is tonight, and Penelo is going to dance for her. All she needs is an accompanying orchestra." Vaan said. Balthier tuned the violin the man shoved into his hands.

"Vaan, believe it or not, but you actually have a streak of genius about you." he said. Vaan grinned.

"A lot of people say that about me. Now let's practice the piece Penelo is going to dance to."

* * *

Fran pulled at a strand of her hair with a somewhat angry gesture. Just this once, they had convinced her to dye her white waterfall of tresses black, though the dye would wash out with water, Penelo assured her. However, even with a changed outfit, Balthier still looked like a miniature version of his older self, unlike Fran, who looked like whole new Viera. She had exchanged her sensual black leather ensemble for a more reserved, white cloth one, and was almost unrecognizable. Balthier simply put a black cloak on, pulling the hood over his face.

Elizabeth massaged her fingers gingerly. "I believe my fingers are swollen." she announced. They had practiced for hours, until Fran's fingers almost bled from plucking the lyre, Barbossa's lip had swelled from being curled to blow into the flute, and Jack and Balthier's wrists ached from drawing the violin bow back and forth. Balthier drew up a Cure spell, stroking his fingers trailing silver white light along Elizabeth's hand. Fran tended to the other men— Balthier was not about to touch Barbossa's face, not even with his gloves on.

"Ready to go?" Vaan poked his head in, dressed in his party livery. He looked ridiculous, but Balthier did not have the heart to tell him that his fashion sense was terrible. They were admitted to Ashe's birthday ball without even being searched, so no one ever knew that under his cloak, Balthier had a Yagyu Darkblade strapped to his leg, within easy reach on his shin, or that Barbossa had a dagger concealed in a special stitch in his coat. Even Fran had a few poisoned needles on her person, though they were disguised as hairpins. They took their seats on the raised dais, and the ball slowly began to quiet as Penelo took center stage.

Barbossa began to play on his flute, a slow but cheerful song, and the young woman began to dance, turning slowly. Then Jack joined, the music swelling as Fran and Elizabeth began as well, and Penelo rose with them, spreading her arms and tilting her pale face upward. Then Balthier began, quietly at first. The heartbreaking wail of the violin threaded like a serpent under joyous green grass, dripping poison and sorrow but unseen by the world passing above, until it rose and struck, a threat never perceived but always behind. He continued on alone now, and Penelo sank back to earth, like a flower ripped from its stem in a storm but coming to rest. At last the violin died out, and the audience roared with applause. Penelo smiled as if sunbeams were shining through her and bowed as the men and women in the front row threw flowers, before vanishing offstage. Her orchestra chose that time to vanish with her.

"Come with me," Penelo whispered, touching Fran's shoulder and leading them toward the pavilion where Ashelia B'nargin Dalmasca was now mingling with her guests. Penelo caught her eye, and she swept forward in a mass of glittering jewels and airy silks to greet them.

"That was beautiful, Penelo!" the Queen said, as she held out her hand. Penelo knelt, kissing it gracefully. Jack instantly decided that this queen was not like Larsa at all. Larsa hadn't made them kiss his hand. Though he was a man. Maybe this was a woman thing. "The dance was quite exquisite, and your musical accompaniment was superb."

"She means she was dazzled by it." a lady-in-waiting snickered, and Ashe threw her a dirty look.

"I am quite capable of speaking for myself." she chided the girl. "It is a pleasure to see you again." Penelo nodded.

"Do you have a moment, my lady?" she asked. "My orchestra wishes to speak to you as well, but… in private."

* * *

The instant she saw Balthier's face, she raced toward him and rewarded him with a slap. Balthier rubbed his cheek, where an angry red handprint was blooming. "I don't think I deserved that, Highness. Besides, isn't there a rule against Queens beating children?" he complained, but dodged before Ashe could slap him again.

"I rather think you do! Aren't you a child in appearance only?" the Queen hissed. "What do you want this time? Every time I see you, you want something." She slapped the other side of his face while he stood there dumbstruck.

"You have been seeing Ashe?" Fran's voice was like the crack of doom. Balthier was already now about eight inches shorter than the Viera, and now that she leaned over him, she must have looked absolutely intimidating.

"W-where do you think I got the medicine when you were poisoned in the Zertinan Caverns by a rare strain of Mallicant?" he squeaked. Fran snorted, drawing herself back up to her full height. Ashe sat down with a rustle of silk in a large chair, crossing her arms.

"Well, pirate? What is it this time?"

"My companions know of the subject better than I." Balthier moved to the side to allow Jack and Barbossa to come forward, rubbing his cheeks.

"Your majesty, we seek a way to bind a god to a physical form." Barbossa intoned with a bow. Ashe tapped a finger to her chin.

"So you anger the gods again, do you, Balthier." she murmured. "You tempt the fates time and time again. One day, your luck will run out."

"This is no time for sentience, Ashe. As you can see, my luck has been rather short lately." Balthier said shortly. Ashe looked as if she wanted to slap him more.

"So you are offended that I actually _care_ for you? I thought you were passed all this." she snapped. "Binding a god… in Giza, they bind the rain gods into magical pots to use their power."

"Larsa said the same thing." Fran replied.

"Our goddess in our world had a flesh and blood body, though she was still powerful and immortal, she could also be held and killed." Jack told the Queen, who nodded thoughtfully.

"There is one way. Balthier has been touched by the very fabric of the water god's being in order for him to be transformed so. By the look of it, the spell was actually much stronger, and it was supposed to make you regress all the way to infancy. Something interfered, and is still interfering, holding the magic without letting it fade. Do you know what it might be?"

"Yes." Fran marched over to her partner, pulling his shirt off.

The edge of the golden medallion in his chest would normally wink in the light like a little sun, but it was dull in its frame of puckered scar tissue. But that was not the worst part of it. Black veins surrounded by sickly white flesh radiated from the coin, like a thick, gross spider web lying across his chest.

"Oh!" Ashe gasped, Penelo put her hands over her mouth, and Vaan stared.

Balthier only had time to look at Fran with very worried eyes before his face turned as white as his shirt and he fainted clean away. Fran caught him before he hit the ground, lowering him gently onto another couch.

"What _is_ all that?" Vaan yelped.

"_That_ is the seal you made with Calypso?" Jack roared. "I knew you were crazy, but I didn't think you'd let her replace your heart with a metal disc!"

"If you recall, he was a cursed skeleton at the time, and therefore had not heart to speak of." Elizabeth whispered, laying a hand over his cold chest. Still there was no heartbeat under her fingers. Barbossa shook his head.

"Calypso is a very powerful goddess in her own right: She brought me back from the dead. Methinks we were pitifully underprepared to face this water god if his magic could contend with Calypso's." he said.

They all jumped when someone pounded on the door.

"Your highness?" a voice asked. "Are you in here?"

"What is it?" Ashe snapped.

"The thirtieth prince of Rozzaria wishes to see you and ask your hand in marriage." The Queen's face could have made Yiazmat run for cover.

"_You_ are interrupting something _very_ important, sir, and if you and your thirtieth prince of Rozzaria do not leave in _ten_ seconds, I shall personally fling you from the battlements of my palace." she screeched. It was surprising that Balthier did not wake up with the amount of noise she made, but for all purposes, he looked and felt very dead.

"This is what you can do, if your goal is the Fountain of Youth. The only way to cure Balthier and get your water is to kill the god, and there is a way. Since he has touched Balthier, he has left a residue that allows him hold on Balthier's life, and that is why Balthier is a child again. However, the bond can go both ways, allowing you a hold on the god. In ancient days, there was a method of sealing rogue gods and demons into humans who acted as vessels, chaining them to the mortal spectrum. The supposedly immortal creatures could then be killed by practical means, be it hanging, stabbing, poisoning, anything that could kill a man. If what you say about Balthier is true, he can die briefly before coming back to life.

"I think if you trapped the god in Balthier and killed him, you can thus free him from the curse, and get your water of Eternal Youth." Ashe finished. Jack whistled.

"Sounds complicated. Now, who amongst us knows how to do this sealing?" he asked. No one said a thing.

"I told you, it's very ancient." the Queen huffed.

"I'm not sure he will appreciate serving as a receptacle for a god, even briefly." Fran said.

"Look here, he's coming around!" Barbossa pointed to the sky pirate, whose eyes fluttered open at the same time. Balthier blinked blearily before focusing on Fran.

"What's happening to me, Fran?" he asked, gesturing to his black-veined chest. "I'm sure this is not normal."

Fran brushed a stray strand of hair from his forehead with her thumb. "It is not." she replied, and Balthier sat up, wincing as the medallion twinged. "Is everything alright with you?"

"Thank you for being so optimistic." he said. "I was just severely shocked."

"Now would be a good time to ask him." Ashe nudged Fran gently, but before the Viera could say anything, Vaan asked,

"Balthier, would you mind being a vessel so we can put the water god in you, then kill you?" The sky pirate gazed at him, treating him to his most freezing stare.

"Well, when you put it that way, I bloody do mind!" Balthier snapped. "Everyone takes advantage of the dead man."

"Do you want to be sixteen for the rest of your life?" Jack asked. "You're alive, granted, but you won't get any women. And no rum! Because you're underage! For the rest of eternity!"

"I see what matters to you, Sparrow." Elizabeth glared at him. "For now, Balthier, I think you should rest. Moving about as much as you are and have been is clearly not good for you. Look! The veins are spreading." Sure enough, the latticework across his chest was growing, albeit by millimeters, but growing all the same. Balthier hissed in annoyance, the sound vaguely like that of a cat's, before deigning to let Fran lift him, cradled in her arms.

"We will go back to the _Strahl _and there hold conference. I am willing to bet that it is the concept of spirit alignment." she said, turning toward the door to leave, Jack, Elizabeth and Barbossa following her like the disappointed tail of a comet.

"I wish you luck." Ashe called after them.

* * *

As far as luck was concerned, the band of pirates had no manner of it whatsoever. As soon as they stepped out of the private room, a large green bangaa with a spiked beak cover leapt at them, screaming "_Balthieeeeer!_" in his croaking reptilian voice. The ball erupted into chaos, and Fran almost dropped the boy in shock!

Ba'Gamnan, for that was indeed who the bangaa was, stumbled to a halt when he took in the sight of Fran with her hair dyed black and the hume child she clutched in her arms before bursting into guffaws of laughter.

"How far the mighty have fallen, Balthier!" the bounty hunter cackled. Balthier struggled out of Fran's grip, pulling at the clasp of his cloak and letting it fall away, ready for a fight.

"You mustn't move so much, you'll spread whatever manner of sickness you have!" Elizabeth cried. "Let us protect you. We have much more interest in your welfare then you would believe."

The green bangaa snorted as they were surrounded by guards before shrugging his shoulders. A burst of energy scattered them like tenpins, and Balthier recognized the power immediately.

"Nethicite implants! Where did you get them, fool?" he barked.

"I did them myself, I did, and I'm proud of it. Spoils from the Draklor labs I received as payment from the Empire, saved for five years until the time was right." Ba'Gamnan chortled, drawing his rotating circular saw blade. "I'm going to go easy on you, nice and slow. You only fetch half the bounty dead." He swung the staff.

"Sorry, Elizabeth, but I can't stay out of this, even if it kills me or turns me back into a brainless zombie." Balthier dodged the blow, leaping backward to avoid the cutting edge. His hand dropped to his shin, and he pulled the ninja sword free of its black lacquered scabbard. "This enemy is beyond just the three of you. You'll need our help!"

"And you'll have my help as well, pirates." Ashe stood before them, resplendent in her battle attire, a pure white sword gripped easily in her pale hands. "You are not alone in this fight. Ba'Gamnan, you dare violate my demesne? That is a crime worthy of capital punishment— a punishment I shall now enact." She jumped into the fray.

Balthier managed to execute a flying leap and land on the bangaa's back, and he slid his blade between Ba'Gamnan's shoulders, attempting a kill strike, but before he could get the sword in, the bounty hunter twisted, delivering a crushing punch that sent him sprawling. He cursed, wiping blood from a cut that welled up just above his eye, blinding him and painting the scenery red. Elizabeth ducked under the bangaa's upraised arm and managed to graze his ribs, but the hard, reptilian scales turned away the rest of the strike.

Suddenly, there was a loud bang, and Ba'Gamnan jerked as a round hole spewed blood from his shoulder. Barbossa stood a short distance away, a smoking gun in his hand.

"Chew on lead, ye great lizard!" Barbossa snarled. Ba'Gamnan roared in return, and Barbossa was forced to run before the bangaa cut him in half with the saw blade.

"Where are your siblings? Rinok? Bwagi? Gijuk?" Balthier panted, spinning and slicing into Ba'Gamnan's muscular thigh. The bangaa didn't even notice, and with another flare of nethicite energy, he blasted Balthier into the stone wall of the palace.

Several things cracked— his spine snapped against the wall, his head slammed into it hard enough to make spider web fractures in the stone, and his hip, which had contacted the wall first, shattered. Blinking stars from his eyes and struggling to make sense of the world around him, Balthier managed to raise his head, though his neck screamed in pain to do so, in time to see the green smear that was Ba'Gamnan towering over him, whirling his staff.

"My family is dead, punished for their cowardice, and I killed them!" he laughed with the laugh of the insane. "You can meet them in the underworld, soon enough!" The blade slashed down. The last thing Balthier saw before everything went dark was a pool of his blood, spreading like a monstrous flower bloom across his torn shirt and spilling across the flagstones, staining the white cloth _black_.

* * *

Fran watched him as he went still, night black blood spraying out of the fatal wound Ba'Gamnan had dealt him. With a wordless scream of rage, she tried to fling herself at the bounty hunter, but Elizabeth, Jack, and Barbossa piled on top of her, holding her down. She struggled against them wildly.

"Stop it, bunny girl!" Barbossa snarled into her ear. "Remember? His life is bound to yours, and he can't die, unless you do. Do you _want_ to get killed by that creature?" he looked toward Ba'Gamnan, who stood triumphantly over Balthier's "corpse". Penelo's hands were clapped over her mouth as she choked down a scream of horror. Vaan was valiantly trying to get in between the crazy bounty hunter and the body of his reluctant mentor without getting hacked to pieces when Ba'Gamnan attempted to mutilate the cadaver.

"What happened to 'nice and slow,' Ba'Gamnan? I thought Balthier only fetched half the bounty when he was dead!" Vaan shouted.

"Five million gil is enough. This _brat_ has humiliated me many times, and today, I have gotten revenge!" the bangaa roared.

Ashe prepared the most lethal spell she knew: Death. The black and red miasma wrapped around Ba'Gamnan's body, but fell away, rolling off of him in a wave, leaving him unscathed.

"Foolish little Queen, to think she could cast a spell like Death with no intent to kill." Ba'Gamnan laughed as he advanced upon her.

"Then fight someone who does." Fran said coldly, standing up and throwing off the three pirates attempting to hold her with inhuman strength. "For if it is killer intent you seek, you will find it here, in my claws."

She descended upon him, glorious in her rage and bloody in her methods. Ba'Gamnan attempted to cleave her in two at the waist with a wild swing of his saw blade, but Fran was too quick for him, and she tore off his ear, throwing it to the ground.

"A warning, that." she flicked blood from her nails. "Next it is your head." The mist surrounding the bangaa was burning in her already inflamed mind, and it condensed as he readied another powerful attack. Fran would have stopped, had she been possessed of her normal mind, but everything was a whirl of pain, sorrow, and madness. She ignored the hot mist licking at her arms and face, and in one smooth movement, pulled the hairpins from her curls and shoved them into Ba'Gamnan's heart. The poison worked quickly, entering his bloodstream and spreading through his body. Fran listened with bitter satisfaction as his heart tripped and labored, struggling against the poison that had already done its dirty job, watched with glee as froth sprang from his snapping jaws. The bangaa's eyes were rolling like billiard balls in his skull, and he seemed to be attempting to cast Poisona upon himself, but could not formulate the words to do it. Finally, his head dropped back, and his swollen tongue flopped out of the corner of his mouth.

"And thus, Ba'Gamnan departs from our numbers." Fran intoned, before dropping to her knees in the sea of sticky black blood surrounding her fallen partner.

"I'm sorry, Fran. I couldn't protect him…" Vaan mumbled.

"It is alright. He is alive, I am sure of it." _Figuratively speaking_. Fran tore a strip from her white blouse, using it to wipe away the blood caked on his chest. She was right; the wound had already healed, but it had indeed been a grievous injury.

A new, knotted scar stretched from Balthier's right shoulder to his left hip, but it was not the scar that worried her: it was the lattice of black veins that had now spread over his entire chest and abdomen. And even though he had mostly healed, Balthier was not waking up from the death trance yet, and his face was unnaturally pale.

"What's wrong with him? Why isn't he waking up?" Elizabeth knelt next to Fran, ignoring the blood that soaked into her dress.

"It's because he is dead." Vaan said sourly. "The dead don't wake."

"You know not of what you speak, Hume." Fran snapped, and Vaan jerked. Fran had never spoken to him like that, not even with a semblance of anger in her tone, and the words were like a physical slap. "We will take him back to your home to recover, if that is all right with you."

"Uh, sure, if you think it will help, go ahead." Penelo answered.

* * *

The two former sky pirating duo lived on the second floor of Migelo's Sundries. Fran took Balthier's unmoving body and put him in Vaan's bed, where she stayed at his side and would let no one else see him, so the rest of the pirates went to the kitchen, where Penelo was putting chipped mugs of tea on the table. For once, Jack was serious and did not ask for some manner of alcoholic drink.

"I don't get it." he finally said. "What's happening now? Balthier has been stabbed, shot in the head, had all his ribs broken right down the middle, his _neck_ snapped, and he's walked away from all of it, and now, suddenly he's down for the count?"

"Queen Ashe said that the pact with Calypso was interfering with the water god's spell. Could it be going in reverse as well, the water god's spell meddling with Calypso's magic?" Barbossa asked. Elizabeth nodded.

"That would explain things, certainly." she took a long drink of tea. "I hope it hasn't interfered with the part keeping the beast in him in check, though I would not get my hopes up." Penelo gave them all a strange look.

"So, you're not from here, are you?" she asked, changing the morbid subject, and the three of them shook their heads.

"We're from the Caribbean. It's on Earth." Elizabeth replied.

"Earth? How did you get here, then?"

"We sailed off the edge of the world, then appeared up here in the Ridorana Cataract. Fran said it was like a giant hole in the sea, but it must also be a gate." Barbossa mused.

"You guys must be pretty desperate to get this Fountain." Vaan crossed his arms and leaned forward on the table. "Why's Balthier involved with you guys, if you're from another world? I thought he didn't age any more, and he liked being twenty-eight for the rest of his life."

"He owes us favors from when he came to our world, and now he's granting us our boons." Barbossa replied, avoiding the fact it was his fault Balthier was now having so many problems by cursing him in the first place. "He got in the way of a curse meant for Fran."

"I told you Balthier wasn't crazy!" Penelo gave Vaan a hardy slap on the back. "You guys are real! Balthier really did get teleported to another world!"

They were interrupted when Fran stumbled down the stairs, exhausted from attempting all manners of spells and healing methods on her partner, but to no avail. She collapsed into a chair, burying her face in her hands.

Clearly, the matter was very serious. Fran, so usually calm and collected, was on the verge of breakdown, drained of Mist Energy and sorely in need of rest. Penelo pushed her onto the couch, even though Fran was a little too long for the Hume sized piece of furniture, and gave her a bottle of Ether. "I have to go back…" Fran was muttering, even as she uncorked the Ether and downed it.

"No, killing yourself to help him is not the solution, Fran. How many times must we tell you?" Jack asked the Viera, who gave him a hard look.

"Here, I'll go keep him company. You rest, Fran, and I'll have no arguing about it." Elizabeth got up and was down the hall before Fran could even get up from the couch.

* * *

Elizabeth sat down on the stool by Balthier's bed. The window by the bed was open, and sunlight was filtering down onto his face, making it look even paler than usual. For a moment, panic gripped her as she noticed he was not breathing, until she remembered he did not have to. Unconsciously, she found herself reaching forward to stroke his russet hair. It was actually rather soft.

It was in this moment that Balthier finally quietly returned to wakefulness.

"Elizabeth." he said calmly, in the way only people not fully awake could speak. She smiled at him before sweeping to her feet. "I'll go get Fran. She has only just left your side on the verge of exhaustion."

"Don't." Balthier sat up in the bed, massaging his neck. "Let her rest. Why not stay here?" Elizabeth could not see why there was anything wrong with his reasoning, and so sat down on the bed next to him.

"We were worried about you. We thought you'd actually died." she murmured. Balthier gave a little snort of laughter.

"Fancy that, people actually care if I am injured." he said. "I was worried all you people saw me as just some kind of human shield."

Elizabeth lightly blocked his verbal jab. "Never. Can I get you anything? I don't know, a cool cloth, some food or water?"

"Hm… I'd have to think about it." Balthier purred. "A little food wouldn't be amiss." Elizabeth made to leave again, but in a movement faster than she could see, she found herself pinned to the wall, Balthier's hands locked around her wrists with a cold iron grip. "But don't go. You don't have to leave." he whispered, his eyes burning into hers. She realized belatedly that they were not their normal brown hue, but were misty silver, as if all color had been drained out of them. His face also remained as pale as before. She felt as if she were melting, her will sapped away by his eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked him cautiously, her breath hitching. "You would not compromise the honor of a married woman?"

"No, I would not." he breathed, his voice velvet rich. Elizabeth shivered as he brushed his lips, cold as the winter wind, along her collar bone.

"Such behavior is unbecoming of sixteen year-old boys, Balthier." she chided, and he smiled, though she could not see it, as he traced his way up her neck. She felt the cold tip of his tongue flick over her skin, the warm puff of air as he smelled her flesh. "Please, desist." she whispered.

"I see no reason to." Balthier said, before Elizabeth realized something very sharp was beginning to prick at her neck. At this point, her nerve broke, and she did the only thing she could.

"Jack!" she screamed. "Barbossa! Fran!" she struggled out from between him and the wall. Balthier growled as the three called, as well as Vaan and Penelo, burst through the door. It took only a second for Fran to take in what was going on before she was upon him, but he was strong, to her shock, and it took the combined efforts of Jack and Barbossa to aid her in pulling Balthier away. As soon as he and Elizabeth were separated, Fran wrapped a large cinnamon hand behind his head and pulled his face toward her shoulder before he could bite the Hume woman, whispering into his ear in Vieran and stroking his hair.

Balthier hissed in frustration, struggling against her, and she caught sight of his hungry silver eyes as he thrashed about in her arms. "_Calm, Ffamran. Be still. Is it the blood loss?_" she murmured as he began to still. She pressed his face to her long, dark caramel neck, and she felt him quivering from restraint.

"_I'm sorry._" he managed to gasp eventually. "_I can't- I don't- I- I-!_"

"_Hush._" Fran said quietly. "_Take it, for it is your right as well as mine, for are you not bound to me by soul?_"

Oddly enough, when he bit her, there was no pain, but she could only relax against him as he hungrily lapped at her blood as it flowed in a thick, red flow from twin punctures in her neck. When her head began to loll, eyes fluttering, Elizabeth called out in warning.

"Ffamran!" He jerked, the word having the desired effect on him, and looked around, before noticing Fran limp in his arms. Balthier stared at the blood dripping from her neck, blinking in confusion for a moment, then realized what he did.

He wanted to throw up all the blood he'd ingested, but he felt far too good to do it. His eyes were back to their brown shade, the color had returned to his cheeks, and the green magic of the Wood flowing in Fran's blood had counteracted the effect of the water god's interference on Calypso's spell somewhat, localizing the blackened veins to a general circle around his heart.

"I suppose you just needed a little blood transfusion, eh? After getting your insides emptied onto the pavement by Ba'Gamnan." Vaan joked as they waited for Fran to recover. A large pile of potion bottles had accumulated by Fran's resting place on the couch, and Penelo would occasionally toss a Cura spell her way as needed.

"I can't live like this." Balthier whispered, watching Fran sleep on the sofa, her knees curled up to her chest. Her nose twitched in her sleep, and her fingers curled. _She must be having a good dream_. "I can't just drink Fran's blood every time I get badly injured. The whole _reason_ I made the pact with Calypso was to avoid having this kind of problem at all. Very well, I consent to being the poor sod that plays the container for a mad god."

"There's a good man." Jack nodded his approval. "Now, how are we going to get him _in_ you is the hard part."

* * *

Yays.


	5. Sealing Methods

Last… day… of summer… break… please expect massive slowdowns.

Thanks to **ElTangoDeRoxanne** for loverly reviews…

I don't own anything.

* * *

Jack used the hilt of his sword to bludgeon another hyena that was attempting to make a meal of him. Overhead, the sun of the Giza Plains beat down on their shoulders as they made their way toward the Nomad's camp, and Barbossa was sweating under his plumed hat.

Elizabeth glanced behind her at the cute, happy looking bunny-like creature that was following a very short distance behind with shuffling, tapping little footsteps. "Fran, a rabbit is following us." she said warily. She had learned not to trust the looks of anything in this world after approaching a yellow, rotund, fuzzy chick innocently sitting in the middle of the plain and being attacked by a squawking ball of mother Cluckatrice fury.

* * *

_Elizabeth blinked at the sleeping ball of fluff in front of her. It looked so cute, she couldn't resist touching it, stroking its large, round head. It seemed all head. When the other pirates approached, she turned toward them, holding a finger to her lips and pointing at the chick still peacefully sleeping at her feet. Balthier's eyes widened with something akin to terror, and he gestured for her to get away from the chick and toward them._

"_What's wrong with it? Does it have rabies?" Elizabeth whispered._

"_No, but it is an aggressive creature with a voracious appetite, called a chickatrice." Fran replied, just as the chick woke up. It blinked at them innocently, making its way to follow them, occasionally pecking at the ground and making cheeping noises. Elizabeth felt her heart melt for the chickatrice, and couldn't stop herself from going toward it. As soon as she was within five feet of it, it looked up at her, opened its beak wide, and shrieked._

_In an instant, there was an answering squawk, and a bird that was shaped like a cockatrice but resembled a chicken in coloring burst from behind a dried log in a cloud of feathers. Elizabeth gave a little scream and fell backward as the Cluckatrice bowled over her, and the party scattered to get out of its way. And then, the huge bird caught sight of Jack. It didn't like Jack._

_Jack sprinted across the plains and into the distance as the Cluckatrice chased after him, making angry burbling noises in its throat. "Help me!" they heard him screech before he vanished around a corner and out of sight. Balthier sighed, rubbing his temples, and followed after the bird and human pair, jogging at a leisurely pace._

"_Shouldn't we hurry? That chicken is gonna rip Jack into little pirate flavored bits if we don't save him in time." Barbossa said. Balthier shrugged._

"_Do we really care, Captain, if he is eaten by a giant chicken?" he asked, and Barbossa thought about it a moment._

"_No, not really."_

"_I thought so." Balthier smirked, as they found the Cluckatrice pecking viciously at a hollow log, attempting to break it open and get at the pirate hiding inside._

"_Oy! Do something!" Jack bawled at them. Balthier shook his head even as he drew his ninja sword and gave the bird a good slice. It squawked and turned on the rest of the party, and attempted to dig its beak into Balthier's arm, since he was closest, but his metal armguard turned away the vengeful strike. With unparalleled skill, Fran put an arrow through the Cluckatrice's eye, and when the bird was trampling about in agony, Balthier readied a Firaga spell and blew a stream of flame at the big chicken, dragon like._

_Needless to say, the party ate very well that night, for Cluckatrice is a delicacy one would be sore to miss._

* * *

"Do not worry, Elizabeth. This animal is not a chickatrice." Balthier sniggered when Elizabeth looked back at the rabbit… thing following them. Its feathery ears blew in the wind as it squeaked at them.

"I know it's not a chickatrice. I have studied enough biology in England to know the difference between a hare and a chicken." Elizabeth snapped. "I just want to know if it's dangerous."

"Dream hares are generally docile, helpful little creatures that will heal you and cure you of your ailments if you treat them right. Though, treat them wrong, and they will attack." Balthier replied, picking the hare up when it looked at him with large, liquid eyes. He cradled it to his chest with a sarcastic grin, for all purposes, _cuddling_ a potentially dangerous creature, and was rewarded when the Giza Hare presented him with a potion in its furry paws for his trouble. "Thank you." he gave it a charming smile and put it back down.

"I did not know you were a rabbit person, Balthier." Jack sniggered.

"But of course. Why do you think I love hares, Moogles, and…" he glanced at Fran, but refrained from insulting her by calling her a rabbit.

"Let us keep charging this Shadestone." Fran changed the subject abruptly. They were making sunstones in exchange for information from Elder Brunoa regarding the magic that sucked the Gil Snapper into the pot that bound it.

"Usually the children do it. That boy, Vaan, from Rabanastre used to come and make sunstones a lot!" Brunoa had laughed. "Now he buys them from us."

Balthier raised an eyebrow. "If the children do it, why make us?"

"In the _honest_ world, you must pay for everything you take, little sky pirate, and so we will barter a sunstone for information on sealing your god." Brunoa tapped his nose maternally. "And, are you not a child, dread sky pirate Balthier?"

Which was how they found themselves running about the plains, being attacked by hyenas, ustrix, and the occasional rabid happy bunny.

"_Child_." Balthier huffed as Barbossa examined a Dark Crystal glowing with solar energy. "I am not a sodding child." he held the Shadestone to the crystal, and it sucked all the energy inside before shining with blinding white light.

They now stood once more in front of Elder Brunoa, who examined the stone carefully. "Good job, dear boy. It is a little small, but it will do." she tucked it away into the bosom of her dress. "How we bound the Rain God? Align the element of the beast's soul with the innards of the jar. We had to use the essence of a Mardu Entite to bind that one, oh yes we did! The lighting alignment was so strong, they were attracted right to each other, oh yes they were!" Brunoa was chuckling.

"So all we have to do is align the water god's spirit element with Balthier's spirit element?" Jack asked. "Sounds easy enough."

"But there's one problem." Balthier drawled. "I'm not aligned with water, I'm aligned with air and immune to Darkness." Barbossa scowled.

"Anything else we need to know before stuffing a water god in you?" he asked.

"He's still weak to White Magick and Holy, though he can use them now." Fran added. "There is one way to still align him with the water god, but you may not like it."

"Tell me what you're going to do." Balthier said threateningly. She told him. He didn't like it.

* * *

The rains lashed at the _Strahl_ as it flew low over the Cerobi Steppes, an imperial airship in close pursuit. The airship jittered as lightning flashed nearby, the resulting clap of thunder shaking everyone inside like a bead in a rattle. Elizabeth clutched the garbage can to her chest, moaning as Balthier pulled the ship into a steep climb, attempting to hide them in the clouds, but the imperial airship had gotten a lock on them, and he could not shake them off.

The _Strahl _had been picked up on imperial radar just as they had flown into Archadian airspace and had the bad luck of passing over an air patrol landed on the Phon Coast, dodging their duties. Naturally wanting to claim the bounty on the Sky Pirate Balthier and his accomplice, Fran, they had fired up their little Remora as fast as they could and gave chase.

The speaker mounted in the wall crackled, and a voice muffled by a helm echoed in the confines of the cockpit over the communications rig. "This is Corporal Landings of the Archadean Imperial Army to the _Strahl_. Set down immediately or we shall open fire." Balthier snorted.

"I'd fain to see you try." he said, sounding eerily like his late father, just without the madness lacing his tone. He handed the communicator to Barbossa over the back of his pilot's seat, and the pirate dove to catch it as Balthier one handedly steered the ship into a roll as a warning shot exploded just off the ship's nose. "Give them a taste of good old pirate tongue lashing, will you, old scout?" Balthier asked.

"Gladly." Barbossa pressed a button labeled TALK. The bar across the top of it turned green, and he began to rail at the poor Archadian soldiers on the other end of the line.

"Think we'd surrender, you potato headed excuses for soldiery! I think not! Did you switch your brains for milk sops when you decided to hop into that liddle ship and go a-chasin' after us? What kind of cack-handed swabs do you take us for, askin' us to set down?" Barbossa roared in fine fashion. The line was silent for a moment, then the soldiers opened fire. Elizabeth screamed as a burning hot bullet whipped by the window less than a few centimeters away. Balthier only laughed, before saying,

"Fran, be a dear and ready the disruptor gun, would you?" Fran punched a button on her console, and a small screen turned on, complete with targeting icons and the like. "Fire at will and take out their engines." Balthier commanded. On the _Strahl_'s roof, a small, unassuming gun perked out of its cradle.

"Gun prepared." Fran reported. Balthier swung them into a set of dizzying evasive maneuvers that ended with them having a nice view of the Remora's rear end.

"Skip the formalities." he said, ignoring the sound of Elizabeth miserably retching in the back seat.

"Understood." Fran graced them with a small smile, before grabbing the firing column and using it for what it was designed to do. There was a quiet noise like an air dart gun being fired, and the ship rocked slightly from the recoil. A small silver slug punched a hole in the engine casing of the Remora before two tiny charges of gunpowder detonated on impact, rupturing the metal shell of the bullet and spilling the contents of its hollow innards all over the engine. The contents of said bullet happened to be an extremely corrosive acid, created from the distilled stomach juices of Flans and Malboros, that could eat through almost any metal, save anything spelled or stronger than adamant. Fran and Balthier were quite proud of owning these rounds— it was their joint creation.

Steam and sparks issued from the hole in the Remora's engine case, and the ship began to rapidly lose height. Over the radio, the soldiers in the ship could be heard shouting at each other.

"Fire up the back up engines, you idiots!" Corporal Landings finally managed to yell, and with vile greenish smoke poring out of the ship, it limped away toward the Hunters Camp on the Phon Coast. Doubtlessly, they would be well received by the shady characters there.

Balthier finally put the _Strahl_ down near some of the wind vanes on the Steppe, opening the doors to let in a blast of wind and rain.

"This be fine weather for hunting." Barbossa shouted sarcastically over the roaring rains, clutching his hat to his head.

"It is good weather for hunting Undin Entites, the supreme water elemental." Fran replied, shouldering her bow.

"My gunpowder is going to be soaked." Jack complained. Elizabeth was still slumped in her chair, groaning. The trash can's smell was absolutely appalling. Balthier thoughtfully left a potion bottle on the armrest next to her, but was quick to leave her because of the stench.

"Do you see one?" He asked Fran, who was scanning the rolling hills dotted with Couerls, Malboros, and Silver Lobos. She nodded, pointing to a luminescent blue ball floating a few hundred yards away. They walked towards it boldly, knowing it would not attack unless provoked, then Fran promptly knocked an arrow and shot it, while Balthier leapt at it with his ninja blade at the ready.

Immediately, he was doused with a level three water spell because of his close proximity, the droplets feeling like bullets ripping into his flesh. He shook the water out of his eyes and slashed at it again, the membrane easily parting before his sword. A squirt of something blue and gelatinous splashed across his arm before the membrane closed.

"Keep hitting it!" Fran shouted, as more blue fluid that must have represented blood sprayed out when they struck the Entite. Jack, who had climbed a tree in order to escape a marauding Couerl, now jumped onto the elemental's smooth, slick surface, digging his dagger in and drawing a long rip in its side. The Undin Entite finally made a sound— a long, watery sigh, as it readied one last attack before it was finished. Jack gave a grunt as a long spike of ice lanced out of the ground, catching him through the shoulder and punching right out the back. His arm went limp, his sword slipping from his hand, red blood dripping from his fingers. Barbossa managed to throw another grenade from his coat at the elemental, and it slipped through the new tear in the Entite's skin to be absorbed inside, just as it exploded.

The party was splattered with blue goo, which Fran scooped off of them and put in a skin bag. Balthier quickly ran to Jack's side. The man's blood was running down the icicle that was impaling his shoulder, freezing into flaking red drops as it went. "Barbossa, you have to help me cut the ice here so we can transport him back to the ship for treatment." Balthier said. Jack was trying to jerk the ice from his arm, but Barbossa stopped him.

"It looks like the ice is frozen to the very blood in your body. You won't rip this icicle out without ripping the rest of your arm off as well." the grizzled pirate said, hacking away at the ice with his sword. Finally, with a noise like breaking glass, the tip of the ice spear broke off, and Jack stumbled away, clutching his arm to his side and cursing a blue streak. Barbossa caught him before he could fall, for if Balthier tried to catch him, he would have been smashed under Jack's weight.

"We will set down in Balfonheim and take you to the late Reddas's Manse." Fran said, wrapping bandages around both Jack's shoulder and the icicle both. "The _Strahl_ is unsuitable for the medical attention that wound needs."

"Why can't you just cure it with Magick?" Jack asked, wincing as Fran pulled the bandage tighter.

"That icicle needs to be removed, and that would involve cutting away more flesh because it's frozen into your body. Fran and I are good medics, granted, but the clean space and supplies required for that operation are somewhat limited on the _Strahl_." Balthier said. "Elizabeth, are you feeling better?" The Pirate King of the Caribbean Brethren Court nodded, white faced, and Balthier noticed that the potion bottle was empty. "Keep a firm pressure on Jack's wound, please. Barbossa, hold him still. I don't want him thrashing in pain when I do a less than stellar lift off in this weather."

They flew down to dock at the private hangar just behind the manse, and Fran escorted them out. "It does not matter if anyone sees you now. We must get Jack healed, quickly." she commanded, and Balthier sprinted down the tarmac, opening the door as Barbossa and Fran rushed Jack through on a stretcher.

"I am quite serious, I can walk!" he was complaining, but Elizabeth pointed to the ice in his shoulder, which was not even melting.

"You are not aggravating that wound, do you hear?" she snapped, and Jack fell silent. Balthier spotted Elza walking toward them, a paper in her hand as she stared at Fran.

"What's with the surprise visit? You rarely ever are here. Normally you try to stay as far as possible…" she said.

"We have an injury. It's not Balthier, he's fine, as usual, but his friend…" Fran flicked an ear toward Jack.

"The cleanest room is down here." the lady pirate led them down a hall and into a room that smelled like chlorine. "This is the sick bay, as you _demanded_ it be designated."

* * *

An agonizing hour later, Jack lay heavily drugged on a couch in a small side room, but his shoulder was as good as new.

Fran poured the blood of the Undin Entite into a bowl, and bade Balthier come sit by her. "I need some blood from you." she said quietly.

"Technically, some of it is now yours." Balthier replied, leaning back in the chair and balancing it on two legs.

"It has cycled through your body long enough." Fran grabbed his hand, and he resettled the chair back to earth as she pulled a small dagger from her leg sheathe and sliced his palm open. She dripped a decent amount of his blood onto that of the supreme water elemental's, and it rested on top of the denser fluid, a blackish red pool on a much clearer blue sea, and mixed it together. "Remove your shirt."

Balthier reluctantly did so, and Fran also took the opportunity to examine the state of his false heart. The veins had spread once more, though not like the time Ba'Gamnan had cut him, but Fran knew that it would only be a matter of time before Balthier had to feed again, using the magic that ran the blood of those in those well versed in its lore to counteract the water god's curse. She dipped her fingers into the cold mixture of blood she had prepared, smearing it in an intricate, vine-like pattern of eldritch magic on his hands, up his arms and around his shoulders, circling his heart, and on his face. When she blew her own power into the spell, the lines glowed icy blue and faded into his skin.

"Now, we can align your body with the water god." she explained as he tugged his shirt back on.

"Great." he grumbled. He was not looking forward to the sealing process.

* * *

When night fell, Fran watched as Balthier surveyed the night life of Balfonheim, perched on the windowsill like a bird, his fingers gripping the stone. He watched them all with starving silver eyes, but nevertheless, his face remained impassive. Fran got up to stand next to him, and he turned toward her, observing with the gaze of a predator, though he smiled gently. The moonlight, which was oft said to reveal the presence of strong magic, did so now, the spell Fran traced on his body glowing faintly.

"I would offer you my blood again, if you wished it." Fran put a hand on his arm before folding herself about him, a sinuous brown figure in black leather wrapped about his shoulders. He trembled. Her blood was pulsing so hot and tempting as she surrounded him with her heat. It felt as if the sun had come to envelope him, and he greedily absorbed her warmth.

"Fran, I am still afraid that I will not be able to control myself, and that I will kill you one day." Balthier whispered, closing his eyes and breathing deeply. "I would drink the world dry before I touched you like that again."

"You must feed?" she asked, squeezing him to her.

"I have felt… tired. Lethargic, ever since the battle with the Undin Entite. Exhausted when the sun rises, and not even sleep will cure it. When we fly the skies, I don't hear the sweet song of the wind or the hum of the _Strahl_, I only can think of the hearts pumping life blood through the veins of the four _very_ lucrative prey about me, the scent of the sea brine and Caribbean sun that rolls in waves from Jack and Elizabeth. Barbossa smells like a piece of old kelp a monkey rubbed its behind in. And you… you smell absolutely wonderful to me." Balthier gently twined a piece of Fran's snow-white hair about his fingers and pressed it to his face, before dropping it back in place.

"Then go." Fran said succinctly, as was her habit. "We set off for Giruvegan once more on the morrow, and everybody must be at full strength." Balthier nodded, rising from his spot and making for the door, his boots soundless on the wood floor. Just as he was about to leave, Jack snorted in his sleep, rolling over and scratching his stomach. Balthier found himself pondering the fruitfulness of their quest as he watched the man snore, his hand on the door knob.

Jack really did have a thirst for eternal life. In the cave of Isla de Muerta, Jack had taken a pirate medallion and held it between his fingers meditatively. "Think of it, mate. _The Immortal Captain Jack Sparrow._ It has a ring to it, doesn't it, boys?" he asked the sky pirate and the blacksmith standing beside him. Will had pushed the medallion out of his hands and back into the chest.

"You don't want this kind of life." he'd said.

Balthier chuckled softly to himself at the memory, pushing his way out of the room and ghosting down the hall. Well, look what kind of a pickle the simple act of using a medallion to send himself home had gotten him into. Definitely not worth immortality. Being a zombie had not been in the equation. And now, they searched for yet another form of eternal life for the greedy pirate captain, who'd been cheated of it when he gave away his opportunity to become captain of the _Flying Dutchman_. Another case of adventure gone awry; being a child inflicted with a mild form of vampirism had also not been in the equation.

He slid through the crowd of Balfonheim party goers, listening to the throb of their pulses thrumming about him. A young girl, clearly Archadian and inexperienced in the ways of the outside world, standing alone in an alleyway caught his attention, and he began to make his way toward her. The medallion substituting for his heart gave a painful twinge, reminding Balthier of why he was out here stalking innocent little girls instead of enjoying a night with Fran, and he quickened his step, wanting to get the dirty task over with.

That was when he heard the rough voices.

"Alone, girly? Ye don't need tae be stayin' out here by yer lonesome…" a bald pirate with black tattoos running across his scalp and down his neck and a very scantily clad woman in an enchanter's habit leaned over the girl, who cowered back against the wall.

"I-I'm not alone, I'm just waiting for someone." she whispered, terrified.

"How long 'ave you been waiting?" the female pirate purred, with a fake smile. She cocked her hip in an authoritative manner, one that forced answer from her victim.

"An hour or two…" the female pirate's smile turned knowing. Balthier sniffed the air, sifting through the scents until he identified hers, a clashing mix of cheap perfume and male blood. He knew this woman by face and deed, a deceptive creature by the name of Myriad. She and her partner were slavers, who set their eyes on selected women and children, then spun webs of entrapment in order to capture their prey in a manner that made them as docile as kittens. Balthier had actually meant to do something about their slave ring, using some of the pressure he had as Pirate King, when he got the chance. Now was as good a time as any other. As luck would have it, Myriad was a skillful mage in her own right, making her blood a perfect treatment for Balthier's "illness".

"Your companion will not be coming." Balthier stepped forward so that he stood next to the young girl. "He is dead, and this creature posing as the fairer sex of the Hume species is the perpetrator." The girl's eyes filled with water and she began to hiccup. Balthier found himself feeling rather bad for even considering her for a meal, but contented himself with the fact that he would be taking down Myriad tonight instead.

"My companion? My father?" the girl asked, grabbing his hand and squeezing it painfully. "Is it true?"

"I'm afraid so." he replied, attempting to pry her fingers off but failing miserably. In the meantime, Myriad bared her teeth at him.

"Stupid boy, you've ruined it!" she screeched, drawing the attention of a few passersby who quickly went on their way when they realized who the woman was. "Demier, take them! I'll sell them both!" The tattooed pirate lunged at them, and Balthier grabbed the young girl's hand and pulled her with him toward the far end of the alley, which opened onto a pavilion behind Reddas's (and now Balthier's, when he chose to use it) mansion. Demier sprinted after them, graceful as a galumphing rhino, while Myriad prowled after him, with the walk of a stalking leopard.

"Such pretty silver eyes you have, boy, and a very handsome face. You'd fetch a high price, you would. If you turn yourselves both over peacefully, we'll take care of you with as little… trouble as possible." she smiled, but Balthier easily saw passed her lie. A pity she did not know her place— he was a _king_ and she was a lowly slaver he would soon smash under his boot.

"You killed my Father! I told him we should never go to Balfonheim! I'll never go with you!" the girl screamed. Balthier winced. He'd been hoping Raz, Rikken, and Elza were making Balfonheim a better place; perhaps not top spot on Archades' tour list, but at least the name _Balfonheim_ would not be spoken of like a curse on the civilian's lips. He would have to mention this little incident to them some time.

"You're not surrendering? You make this hard on us." Myriad pursed her lips, before nodding to her lumpish companion. Demier made another grab for them, and this time, Balthier surprised him by charging straight at him. He ducked low under a large, muscled arm like a tree trunk, using his momentum to execute a very nice sweep, if he did say so himself. Demier landed on his back with a grunt, cracking his head on the pavement. His eyelids fluttered, and Balthier grabbed his face and mashed his head into the flagstones again, just to make sure he was unconscious. Myriad's face blanched, even as she began to prepare a spell.

"You push your luck, boy!" she screeched, before unleashing Sleepga. The girl behind him slowly slumped to the ground, snoring blissfully, having no magic resistance, but even Balthier could feel the tug on his eyelids, the black fog trying to fill in his mind. He slapped himself, the sting waking him up, but Myriad was already on the move, jumping at him with a red dagger drawn. Balthier recognized it instantly as an assassin's dagger, bound in magicks meant to kill in one blow. One hit like that would knock him out cold, and he would wake up some time later most likely in a garbage dump or wherever they chose to dispose of him. Then again, there was a chance it wouldn't kill him…

He wasn't taking that chance. Balthier blocked a lightning fast stab with his armguard, parrying a strike that came soon after. He cursed— she was using Haste. Myriad bore down upon him, using her superior height and now superior speed to her advantage, and Balthier found that he was being forced backward, step by step. The girl behind him groaned in her sleep, and at the same time, his chest twinged again. This had to end now, before the girl woke up and saw what he was going to do…

In a burst of inhuman speed, Balthier was behind Myriad, and he sank his teeth into her neck. At first, she struggled madly, and he was frightened she might wrench his teeth out or break them from the ways she twisted. He growled, readjusting his grip on her neck, and bit down harder. Myriad gave a thin groan, her struggles growing feeble as she pushed against his chest and arms weakly. Her head rolled back, exposing her pearly white throat. Balthier did not know why he suddenly felt so excited as he ignored the holes he'd already put in her neck and now sniffed at the new spot of flesh. "Who… who are you?" Myriad moaned.

"I shall tell you, since it will not matter in a moment." Balthier purred silkily. "I am the sky pirate Balthier, Pirate King of Ivalice." Everything went red.

* * *

He scrubbed the blood off his face a clean spot on Demier's shirt, which he had relieved from the man. The dead man, actually. Slaving was a prime offense in Balfonheim, and Balthier saw no reason not carry out the capital punishment. On the other hand, the place was an absolute mess. A lake of blood oozed thickly off the sides of the wood plank flooring, dripping into the sea underneath, and a few arcs of the stuff had even found its way splashed up onto the walls. Balthier cocked his head; he hadn't been _that_ messy, had he? He looked at his hands. His gloves were covered in a flaking coat of dried blood, and he ripped them off in disgust, tossing them into the bay. His hands underneath the black cloth were still as cold as stone, but at least his face, reflected in the dark water, had a slight flush to it, under his tan. The medallion no longer pained him, and he smiled.

"Right bad show, ain't it, laddybuck?" Balthier whirled, baring his teeth in a snarl at the new arrival, but it was only Raz. The diminutive Bangaa trotted out of one of the alleys feeding into the pavilion and plunked himself down on the ground, too short to do so on one of the barrels lining the wall. "What ya gonna do now, Balthier?"

"You recognized me?" Balthier's lip twitched into a lazy smile.

"'Course I did! You ain't too much different smellin', even if you're a scrappy liddle kid now. Don' like that faint dead smell ye got on ya, though." Raz sniffed. "Don' worry, I won't ask, if it upsets ya talkin' 'bout it. Now how bout I get me clean-up crew goin' through here? Come on, boys!"

A troop of Bangaa armed with mops, pails, and various scouring materials came in, cleaning up the mess. Raz plucked at Balthier's shin guard, gesturing for the boy to follow. He scooped up the Archadian girl, holding her piggy back style, then went after the Bangaa.

"Right glad ye took care of Myriad and Demier, I am." Raz said as they walked. "Been meanin' to do that, an' I see you did to, milord. Been also meanin' to ask: when ya gonna settle down, kiddo?"

Balthier shifted the girl in his arms a little as he shrugged, wincing as her chin dug sharply into her shoulder bones. "It's the spirit of youth, I suppose. I don't have enough patience in my veins like Reddas did, to sit at a desk all day."

"Spirit of youth, the tail on my hind end." Raz snorted. "You're going to be _thirty_ in a few years. Hardly young. Startin' to move up, if I say." Balthier smirked. Too bad the bangaa didn't know he had roughly two hundred years left. Thirty was considered a baby in Viera years. The sad thing was that he would watch as the world passed by; everybody he knew growing old and feeble, succumbing to the ruler of all— death. The girl on his back, jostled by the movement of his shoulder, woke up with a snort.

"Who's the Archadian starling?" Raz asked, only just becoming aware of Balthier's burden.

"Don't know, I only just saved her from slavery." Balthier shrugged again.

"Didn't know that you liked splashing blood like paint on the walls in the process."

"I'm sorry." he mumbled, just as the girl began to kick and scream, beating at his back and shoulders with feeble fists. It was annoying, to say in the least

"Let go of me, boor!" she shrieked, and Balthier only too gladly dropped her on her bottom on the plank flooring.

"Well now, darling, if you have a home any place remotely close to Balfonheim, I suggest you go to it. If you don't, I suggest you stay with us… boors." Balthier grinned and continued walking with Raz. After a moment, the girl's heels thumped on the wood planks, indicating she was following them.

"Balthier, I would also have ye know that there is a faction in the town that would have you deposed. Word is they want to assassinate you." Raz said conversationally.

"I believe it. Let them try. My number is not up yet." the subject of the conversation replied. "Got any family, girl?" he directed the question to the drooping girl behind them.

"My mother lived in Archades… before she too, died." she whispered, immediately quailing. "I didn't want to go to Balfonheim. The pirates… they frightened me. Are you pirates? You don't look like pirates." Raz peered at Balthier through the holes cut into his rain hat, clearly asking if they should give an honest answer. Balthier rubbed his eyes, inhaling deeply and exhaling noisily. He knew how to handle young, Archadian girls.

"Look…" he began, taking the young girl's hands in his own. "Not all pirates are stupid, loutish, unhygienic pieces of scum scraped off the bottom of an Icthon's belly, my dear. Then there are the gentlemen pirates, who are clever, kind, _clean_ people. Like me. In short, I am a sky pirate, yes. In length, fear not, milady." Balthier smiled charmingly. The girl fell for it completely, unknowingly melting into his hands as she returned his smile shyly. "Can you use a Gate Crystal?"

"Yes." Balthier dropped the glowing blue Teleport Stone into her hands, nodding up toward the gate opening into the Cerobi Steppes.

"Use it to get back to Archades. You'll come out in Tsenoble. And take this!" Balthier removed one of his earrings and held it out. "Go to the palace and ask for Gabranth. Show him this and tell him your story. I can assure you that you will receive help. And… tell him Balthier sent you."

He and Raz walked back toward the manse, leaving the girl by the Gate Crystal holding an earring and a Teleport Stone and staring after them.

"Like I said," Raz said as they went through the front door. "Ye would make a good king if ya settled down for a bit. Benevolent, like. Wouldn't a' expected out a' ye."

* * *

GYAH!


	6. Trapped

Glad to be back, but not gonna say much 'cuz I had to crank this out. Thanks to **ElTangoDeRoxanne**_. _May we continue to inspire each other to continue writing and support each other throughout this coming school year! I luv your writing :3

Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

* * *

It must have been that the Occuria were aware of them now, and they sent violent storms of lightning, thunder, and lashing rain against them as Balthier tried to fly the _Strahl_ toward the Feywood. Both Fran and her mostly-Hume partner were hunched over the steering column of the ship, struggling for control against the elements that threatened to flip them into a steep dive or smash them into the mountain side they were now hugging.

The _Strahl_ was screaming, her metal skeleton shaking, steel plates threatening to rip out of their housings. A particularly savage gale ripped the port glossair ring straight out of its housing, and the ship jolted, bucking in the air as smoke and white electricity poured out from the avulsion like mechanical blood. In the engine room, there was a loud explosion followed by a prolonged hiss; alarm bells went off and red lights flashed in the cockpit.

"Fran!" Balthier grit out from between teeth clenched in concentration. "Engines! We can't fly… I'm setting her down!" Fran made her way across the madly swaying cabin to the back, falling against the walls or clutching side bars for balance. Barbossa leaned forward.

"Anything we can do?" he asked. Balthier slid fully into the pilot's seat, gripping the control stick with white knuckles.

"There are two valves in the storage room that must not open at all costs. One is the Mist pipe, the other is a fuel line. I need all of you to hold those down, the pressure right now must be tremendous. Go!" The three pirates filed out of the cabin, nearly tumbling over each other in their haste to follow his commands.

In the storage room, it was easy to tell which pipe was which; they were labeled. A glowing blue pipe, a paper written in an elegant, yet simple hand tapped to it, was marked MIST. The other, in a spidery sort of chicken scratch, was inscribed with FUEL. Out of the MIST pipe, golden green and electric blue steam was issuing out of a valve which was unscrewing at an alarming rate. Barbossa grabbed a large wrench from a tool rack nearby and slammed it onto the frantically turning valve control wheel, and with Jack's help, began rewinding it. Elizabeth anchored herself onto the pipe valve labeled FUEL and held on for dear life.

"Now hold on and pray!" Barbossa yelled, as suddenly there was an almighty crash. Tools, buckets, and random boxes of cargo not nailed down flew forward toward the bow. Elizabeth narrowly avoided getting skewered when a crate containing a multitude of what looked to be small throwing knives or belt knives came clattering down nearby. The MIST valve vibrated under the pressure exerted on them as Balthier was apparently applying some kind of brake and engine reversal all at once. Something nearby burst, a foul smelling steam streaming into the room.

Then it was still. Except for the occasional mechanical groan that reverberated throughout the _Strahl_'s hull and the hiss of steam, it was silent as the proverbial grave. Barbossa slowly let go of the valve wheel, but Jack chose the less dignified approach and flopped to the floor with a grunt.

"Are we alive?" he asked, and Barbossa rolled his eyes. They sat there for what seemed an age until Fran walked in. Her stomach veil was singed and covered in soot, as well as her hair and ears, but she seemed no worse for wear otherwise.

"Is everybody okay?" she asked. Elizabeth nodded.

"I think so. What happened?" she asked.

"This storm was conceived in the bowels of Giruvegan by the Occuria, without a doubt. The strain has been too much for the _Strahl_. The engine has burned up; we have lost a glossair ring and crashed, as far as I know. Let's check in with Balthier and see what we can make of our situation now."

* * *

The cockpit was an absolute mess. Hydraulic wires dripping dirty brown fluid or oil were hanging from the ceiling like toxic jungle snakes sheathed in a skin of black rubber. The curtain hanging in the cabin doorway hung askew, and Fran pushed her way passed it to find a few support beams had bent or collapsed. Elizabeth brushed by one and hissed as it cut her arm.

"Be careful, they are sharp." Fran warned.

"Too late for that, I think." She replied.

"Where's Balthy?" Jack asked, hopping over the wreckage of a loot locker.

"I would do something horrible to you for calling me Balthy, but I'm sort of stuck over here. I could use some help." The sky pirate's voice floated from the pilot's chair. Jack wandered over to the seat and beheld the macabre specter settled upon it.

Balthier looked up at him irately, blood dripping from his lips and down his shirt, standing out against his pale face. He was trapped in the seat by three metal cables that had impaled him through his chest, gut, and hip.

"What happened?" Elizabeth gasped.

"We crashed, that's what happened!" Balthier tugged at a cable sticking out of him futilely. "Now are you going to help me or not? It's not the most comfortable thing, having three inch wide steel cables sticking out of you."

Fran pulled at a chain, her muscles standing out as she strained, and Barbossa pushed against it from the other end. Balthier bit back a groan as it began to move, grinding into his body even more. Blood spurted from the wound as Fran began the painstaking process of pulling the cable out. When it was finally gone, Balthier immediately clamped a hand over the hole, which was now bleeding red, but swiftly turning black.

"Get the other ones out of me!" Balthier cried in a somewhat panicky voice. His eyes were draining to silver, but he made no move to rip himself from the cables to attack them (for which the party was extremely thankful). Fran left the cabin and momentarily came back with a greatsword, the Ragnarok blade they had obtained from the Ixion hunt in Balfonheim, handing it to Elizabeth.

"_This may hurt, Ffamran._" she said in Vieran. "Barbossa, Jack, prepare to pull him off the cables as soon as Elizabeth cuts them. I will have a Curaga ready to heal him."

Elizabeth hefted the huge sword over her shoulder. "On three, then. One… two… _three!_" With a clang, she severed the two cables still holding the child sky pirate in place, the sword biting into the floor, and Jack and Barbossa seized his hands and dragged him forward. This time, Balthier could not hold back; a guttural mewl of pain squeezed its way out of his lips as the cables relinquished him with a grotesque, wet squelch. Fran immediately released her Curaga spell, and the holes began closing with the speed of his heightened regenerative abilities.

"Are you alright now?" Elizabeth asked, and the sky pirate sat down on the floor with a thump.

"I've seen better days, aye, but now look: my _ship!_ My _Strahl_, my beloved, my baby, she's been _scuppered!_" Balthier's voice was rising. Fran knelt behind him, putting her hands about his cold shoulders, and he took several deep breaths to control his agitation. "That storm blew up out of nowhere. If I'd known it was going to be there, I would have never decided to fly today."

"The gods aim to clip your wings." Elizabeth said, looking toward Jack. "They want to crush your dreams." He smirked.

"I am no caged bird." Jack said. "I will find the Fountain, and I'll take it, because that's what pirates do."

"Aye, but you won't be going anywhere until we find a way off this god-forsaken mountain Balthier's landed us on." Barbossa growled. Fran pulled a wrinkled map from a dented locker, putting a finger to her lip thoughtfully.

"Actually, the fact is that we have been blown several leagues off course, to the west. This looks to be the Empyrean Seat, where we felled Exodus, the Judge-Sal." She pointed to the map.

"That far off course?" Jack's eyes bulged. "That was one heck of a storm!"

"The Empyrean Seat is virtually an island, only accessible by walking paths made of floatweed and riding a chocobo." Fran added.

"Couldn't you call someone to help rescue us?" Elizabeth asked, nodding toward the radio link.

"We can't, the communications rig is shot." Balthier said glumly, fingering a bloody hole in his shirt. Jack looked out the window. Massive black, white, and blue vultures soared nearby on wings the span of six men, occasionally giving hideous croaking calls to each other.

"Wouldn't it be great if we could rope one o' those birdies and fly away to somewhere we could get aid?" Jack smiled dreamily. Balthier laughed abruptly, a fang flashing in the dying sunlight, before doubling over swearing profusely as the action irritated his recently healed wounds. Fran passed him a Hi-potion, which he downed in one gulp.

"Actually, it is possible to fly." Fran said slowly. "Balthier, which ones do you have?"

"Which ones what?" he asked, confusion wrinkling his brow.

"Espers, what Espers have you got?" the Viera clarified, her ears turning back. She was getting impatient of simply sitting on the pinnacle of rock like a sitting duck for any marauding fiends to pick them off. "I have Exodus, and Shemhazai."

Balthier consulted the inside of his right wrist, pulling down his sleeve. The pirates leaned in curiously to see the three black glyphs branded into his skin. "You've got brands, too!" Jack exclaimed, fingering his own, blistered scar in the shape of a P.

"Yes, but these are glyphs of power. I have Adrammelech, Zodiark, and Famfrit." Balthier said to Fran.

"Most fitting for you, I think. Zodiark would think your situation amusing, were he here at the moment." She said with a smile.

"You refer to how the gods kept him a child? Yes, he would be happy to know how I feel about the whole thing. Perhaps Zalera would be more interested, if Basch ever summoned him in my presence. That old Death Seraph would be more than glad to say he would command my soul." Balthier grimaced, running a hand through his hair.

"The possession of your soul is _mine_, Ffamran, and don't forget it." Fran said smoothly, and tapped the glyph for Adrammelech on his wrist. "Perhaps Adrammelech would allow us to ride on his back to Nalbina, then we can use a Teleportation Stone to get to Giruvegan. He can fly, at least. We'll get a repair team to the _Strahl _later; it should be safe here for now."

"If he doesn't attract every bolt of lightning in the sky to fry us where we sit. I hope everything goes well; I haven't summoned for an age…" Balthier grumbled, ambling outside so he could summon the Esper.

With a dagger, he cut his finger, squeezing the flesh a little to eke out a droplet of blood. He frowned distastefully at the thick, black drop that came oozing forth, but rubbed it against the glyph anyway. The symbol instantly flared green, and he held his hand out in his typical spell casting position, closing his eyes and bowing his head as he remembered why he hated summoning. Every time Balthier summoned one of the damned creatures, the brand would burn as if freshly made, a fire in his flesh, licking at his skin from the inside. The Mist descended now, devouring the stored energy allotted to the summoning, blurring his outline with its arcane power. A summoning circle sprang into being at his feet, gold light and green fire blazing.

Adrammelech the Wroth materialized out of the Mist, wings flapping and claws clicking. At some silent command, he hovered low enough for Balthier to jump onto his back and assist Elizabeth up. Fran clambered on next, but Jack and Barbossa, the Esper took in his huge, green and gold hands. "Hold on!" Balthier called, as Adrammelech lifted into the air once more, flying South toward the desert in the distance. Elizabeth clung to his back, terrified as the world spun by at sickening speeds.

The Esper put them down just on the edge of Nalbina Town, for his presence there would most likely terrify the civilians, and slowly transformed back into Mist. Balthier gave a courtly bow in way of thanks to Adrammelech, and just before he completely vanished, the Wroth nodded his green goat-like head in acceptance. The Mist condensed, becoming visible as a huge golden cloud for an instant, then was sucked back into the Esper brand marking Balthier's wrist. He hissed as it glowed brilliantly, then faded. When his wrist stopped throbbing, he turned toward the party.

"Well? I suppose we should stock up. I… I have some business to attend to with Nono. Fran, stay with them, please." Without another word, Balthier stalked away into the town.

* * *

"Where is he going?" Elizabeth stared after him. Fran perused a merchant's supply of remedies, handing over some gil in exchange for a few X potions and Elixirs.

"That is his business, not ours." The Viera replied. Barbossa snorted.

"Ye mean ye don't know." He clarified, his eyes scanning the crowd of people moving through the shop stalls, but Balthier had already vanished among them. Jack examined a hunk of gristly, maggoty meat a store was attempting to sell along with demon tails, strange eyeballs, and gross, green liquid in a bottle, but Fran quickly grabbed his arm and dragged him away.

"Why don't you buy some new weapons?" she asked, nudging them toward the weapon shop at the end of the lane. "Your current ones cannot even pierce the skin of an Icthon, never mind the hard carapace of a Mantis."

Elizabeth twirled a sword simply labeled ANCIENT SWORD experimentally. Fran nodded with approval.

"It is not the best sword, but it has the benefit of turning whatever it hits into stone. Quite a useful asset in a long term battle." She said.

"I'll take it." Elizabeth replied, and Fran paid. Barbossa bought some powder for his pistol, and Jack came back with an assortment of accessories which prevented the contraction of various ailments.

Balthier returned moments later, Nono in tow and their faces buried in a schematic, arguing heatedly.

"And I told you not to grind the gears!" the Moogle was nearly screaming, his fur and pom-pom bushing up.

"What would you have had me do? Fly off the cliff and kill my passengers?" Balthier snapped in reply.

"Balthier! I thought you above arguing with people smaller 'n you." Barbossa broke in. With a flap of paper, the schematic came down from in front of the sky pirate's face, revealing a person who could have been a mechanic.

Balthier's nose was a distinguished part of his profile— all Bunansa men (and boys) had it. It jutted out from his face like a challenge, and today, balanced precariously atop that challenging nose was a pair of reading glasses, smeared with oil and fingerprints, and possibly a paw print, too. Soot and grease stood out on his face like tribal war paint, and he peered at them, squinting slightly because of the distorted magnification in the lenses.

"What?" he asked, peeved. "I was simply helping Nono with the new engine for the _Strahl_. It's a recycled racing ship engine, so we should get double the speed from before…" he trailed off, tracing a finger of the schematics and wiping his face off with a handkerchief. "Ready to go?"

Elizabeth nodded mutely. Balthier swept the glasses off his face and tucked them into one of his side packs in the same motion.

"Well then, off to the Gate Crystal."

* * *

"Do you have an idea of how to get a hold on the water god long enough to seal him away?" Barbossa asked. "When I cut him with me sword las' time, it just went straight through."

They were seated with their backs to the Gate Crystal in Giruvegan, enjoying a last meal of dried meat, a little preserved fruit, and water.

"It is impossible to harm an entity made of water. Water does not resist; it merely flows around the obstruction." Fran said formally. Jack filled another cup with water from the lake Giruvegan was submerged in, setting it down in front of them.

"We could freeze him again and figure out what to do about it then."

"If you remember, it only made him angry and then he tried to curse us." Balthier said sourly.

"If only we could find some way to bind him to a place he could do no harm while we performed the soul alignment." Elizabeth mused, taking the cup Jack had filled and examining it. "Fran, what are Espers?"

"The servants of the Scions, who rose in rebellion as the Darkness whispered evil secrets into their hearts."

"_In vainglory they arose, shouting challenges at the Gods. But prevail they did not. Their doom it was to walk the Mist until time's end._ Something like that?" Balthier raised an eyebrow, quoting his partner.

"So they are like gods as well? But humans can command them." Elizabeth frowned in confusion.

"They were flung to the earth, commanded by their glyphs, lower than even the mortal servants of the gods." Fran explained. "They are the pure embodiment of the twelve heavenly zodiacs. I possess Exodus, the Scales, and Shemhazai, the Archer. Balthier has Adrammelech, the Sea Goat, Zodiark, the Snake Bearer, and Famfrit, the Water Bearer."

"Water Bearer!" Elizabeth cried, throwing up the cup. Water splashed everywhere.

"Good God, woman, what's gotten into you?" Barbossa roared.

"No, she's on to something. Let's hear it, lass." Jack smirked.

"Famfrit— he can perform the spell to trap the water god, can he not?" Elizabeth grabbed Balthier's arm roughly, pulling down the black, long sleeved shirt he wore to see the line of Esper brands.

"Easy, darling, brands hurt even after they have healed." Jack said sympathetically, seeing Balthier flinch.

"Sorry." Elizabeth glanced at him and back to the glyphs. "Which one is it?"

Balthier tapped the mark that looked like an oblong, decadent bubble dripping chains.

"I must warn you, once I summon him, all my Mist Energy will be drained to maintain him, and I won't be able to do any powerful attacks or Quickenings unless Fran starts a chain and I can use the ambient Mist in that case to perform. That also means no magick, so if we run out of phoenix down or potions, the next person to go down is staying down."

"What about those nether things? Couldn't you use one of those?" Barbossa asked.

"Nether… Ethers? The only place to buy them is Nabudis, league upon league from here. We're clean out— we gave the last of ours to Penelo." Fran said ruefully. "Perhaps that was a rash decision?"

"What did they need ethers for? They don't do any pirating anymore! They're civilians!" Balthier would have exploded if Fran were not his partner.

"They seek the Esper Chaos with Queen Ashe." Fran said simply, and Balthier snorted.

"A wild goose chase, I assure you." He said, before rising to his feet. "We had best be moving. This Mist is suffocating me."

* * *

The inner sanctum of Giruvegan was unnervingly silent. There were no Mithril Golems, Gargoyle Barons, or even Vivians roaming the steep water-steps, and the Mist was so thick it obstructed their vision. The mirror images reflected at them were even more confusing: images of Elizabeth holding her child, Barbossa as a skeleton, and multiple Jacks walked toward them and dispersed as soon as they reached them. There were even a few images of Balthier as an adult and Fran as a wood warder, though once there was a scene of a horrific shadow with glowing white eyes bearing curling, scythe like claws descending upon them.

It was so realistic Balthier whirled, lifting his lip in an animalistic snarl of challenge, to find there was nothing there.

"You know, I do believe we have passed that shining gate already." Elizabeth said, pointing toward the barrier with narrowed eyes.

"You mean to say that we might be going in circles? Preposterous!" Jack blustered, but his eyes turned to Barbossa for confirmation.

"Aye, I think that be the case. Do you know where you are going?" the salty captain asked the two sky pirates. Fran was consulting their map, where Balthier had marked it with a crude X on the door to the Fountain of Youth, and the younger sky pirate was staring at a small, handheld radar, perplexed.

"We must be getting turned around in the Mist. Where are we, Ffamran?" Fran asked her partner. Balthier held up the radar screen, which showed nothing but scrambled lines.

"I haven't the faintest idea. This thick Mist is interfering with all of our equipment." He said. "But it is strange. Not even the Diakon Entites are here. I don't like the look of this."

"Perhaps the water god and the Occuria have anticipated our presence?" Jack leaned against the light barrier, which was solid enough to take his weight.

"That is obviously the case, but I don't remember this gate being here when we first came into Giruvegan." Fran shook her head, her white tresses swaying.

"It must have been erected to keep us out." Balthier examined it carefully, but Elizabeth stopped him by grabbing his shoulders and spinning him around to face them.

"Look, we must be close!" she said. Sure enough, the lines Fran had traced onto his body in the blood of the Undin Entite were glowing, and she moved him closer to the barrier, they glowed even brighter. "They must not know what we did. The eyes of these Occuria are not all seeing!" she exclaimed. "The Fountain is just on the other side of this barrier!"

"Perhaps you can break it?" Fran asked, touching it tentatively. It seemed solid enough, but when Balthier was close, it blurred. The child sky pirate put a hand to it, apprehension visible in his narrowed silver eyes.

"It looks like it might hurt." He said simply as electricity crackled around his fingertips. One spark jumped to his finger, and Balthier hissed at the shock. "Those little buggers have the power of a damn lightning bolt!" he yelped. "You expect me to break something like that?"

"I suppose you could just stay like that the rest of your life, then, _shorty_." Jack said with a smirk.

"There's nothing wrong with being sixteen. As far as I am concerned, I'm not really dead, I've got the sky, I've got Fran, and I can still pillage, pilfer, plunder, and what have you." Balthier crossed his arms over his thin chest. Barbossa raised an eyebrow.

"We've said it before. The ladies have no intention with going out with a runt like you." He said wickedly. Balthier growled.

"Don't remind me."

"And I suppose you want to stalk the night, drinking the blood of poor humans for the rest of your life? Two hundred years… that's a long time." Elizabeth said quietly. Balthier dropped his gaze to look at his boots instead.

"Very well." He said after a while. "I suppose this is just like a Fool's Façade?" Fran nodded, and Balthier drew his ninja sword before delivering a powerful slash. The lightning charge that arced to race up the blade was muted by the sword's Dark Magick, and he only felt a tingle in his fingers.

The barrier shattered with a buzz, revealing the familiar sloping passageway into the Fountain of Youth's chamber.

"The goal is in sight. Gentlemen, I thank you for your business." Jack gave them what he hoped was a courtly bow, and strode down the corridor. Barbossa rolled his eyes, but followed close behind.

* * *

"I see you have returned." The water god rose from his golden pool to meet them. If he had a face, the pirates were sure he would have been sneering. "Did you enjoy my gift to you?"

"Quite." Balthier said shortly, sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

"I didn't expect the little blood-drinking side effect, but all the better, don't you think?" it laughed, a silvery chime.

"Stop pickin' on him, you lame excuse for a guardian." Jack snapped at the god.

"Very well, let's get down to business, then. I suppose you had some kind of plan involving Famfrit, the water bearer, trapping me. I might as well take away _that _advantage." The water god traced a rune in the air; at the same time, Balthier clutched his wrist, where the Esper glyphs were branded, and screamed.

Thick, black liquid oozed out of the glyph for Famfrit, plopping to the floor as a thick pile of muck. Balthier writhed, tears streaming down his face, as more sludge poured out of his arm, his lithe frame shaking with pain as the Esper's very essence was torn out of his body. Fran ran to his side, grabbing his shoulders and holding him close, lest he hurt himself as he flailed in agony.

When the torrent finally stemmed to a drip, the sludge began to gather, forming into the Esper's familiar suit of armor and chained ewer, but something was wrong. Famfrit's body, which was normally bright blue and gold, was now covered in black rust, and the gold was tarnished.

"No… Famfrit…" Balthier groaned in response to something the Esper said in his mind. "Don't do this… fight him…" he weakly struggled to his elbows, his eyes beseeching, but Famfrit gave a metallic roar and flung his water jug.

Fran dragged the stunned pirate out of the way as the ewer crashed into the ground exactly where they had been lying moments before. Elizabeth drew her new sword.

"Prepare for battle!" she cried, over the mocking voice of the water god.

"Must I remind you that as a god of water, I can control Famfrit easily, even with your pitiful interference?" it was saying, as Famfrit spun the pitcher over his head and brought it down toward Barbossa, who dove for cover before he was flattened. "Why do you care for it so much, Balthier? The espers were our servants, and they were betrayers of our trust. Though, I think you know much about betrayal yourself."

"My father commanded this Esper." Balthier scrambled to his feet. "I didn't love him, but Famfrit is all I have left of him."

"Then I will give you a fitting end!" The water god shrieked, making a gesture. Elizabeth jumped at the Esper's back, plunging her sword into a gap in the armor and praying that the Petrify spell worked, but Famfrit continued his charge, raising the jug over his head. Balthier froze in place, powerless to do anything but quake in the face of the Esper's wrath, and he couldn't move. Fran, to her dismay, was forced to give up on moving him, and could only watch with horror as the jug slammed down on top of him, trapping him inside.

* * *

Yay, please review!


	7. Burn it All

The last chapter… to my Pirates Trilogy… I hope you enjoyed them all! **ElTangoDeRoxanne**, this last chapter is dedicated to you, my most faithful reviewer! If I write anything else, I'll send you a message *hearts*. However, there is one more story! The Pirates Trilogy is over, but I have began work on a Terminator crossover that is a continuation of this series! Visit my profile page and read "**Our Wartorn Earth**" for more fun with our favorite undead pirate and crazy crossovers.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

* * *

"Balthy!" Jack shouted, running to the ewer under which the said sky pirate was trapped. He pounded on the outside of the jar, the sound making a hollow ring.

"Shut up out there! You're giving me a headache." Balthier's voice was sour, and a responding knock sounded from inside the ewer.

"Can't you dismiss him and get out of there?" Barbossa asked.

"If you didn't see, I had the bloody thing sucked out of my very body. He's not mine anymore. Don't worry about me— Famfrit's strong enough even without his water jug. I'll figure out something, just stay alive, alright?" Balthier's voice was gentle, and they could tell he was trying to keep everybody calm by staying calm himself, but it was futile, as Famfrit swung a huge, metal coated fist at them. Elizabeth screamed.

The resulting earthquake shook stalactites from the ceiling, and Jack narrowly avoided getting impaled on one before he was drenched in a Waterga spell from the god, sweeping him off his feet. He shook the icy drops from his eyes, hair beads clacking, and shed his coat, which was water logged and weighing him down. Famfrit gave a hollow roar, swinging a chain at them next, but the chain wrapped around a stalagmite. This rendered it ineffectual, but a rock that fell from the chipped formation momentarily stunned Elizabeth, dropping her to her knees. Fran loosed a lightning arrow from her bow, the arrow simply bouncing off off the Esper's armor. It was time for a move of last resort.

"It ends now!" Fran shouted, the Mist swirling through the room bending to her call. She summoned the familiar balls of ice energy into her palms, flinging them with deadly accuracy toward Famfrit, where the twin icicles impaled him and trapped him in a frigid prison. She blew him a delicate, magic laced kiss.

"_Shatter!_" she commanded, and the ice broke, ripping apart the Esper.

She sank to the ground, gasping for breath, as the Mist that had fueled her rage drained out of her body. With a sigh, Famfrit dissipated, but his ewer remained.

"A shame, but you are still finished." The water god sneered, raising its hand. A Doom spell formed in its palm. "Look death in the face and know your master, pathetic mortal scum!"

* * *

The inside of the ewer was as dark as pitch, and everything echoed loudly, even the simple sound of Balthier's breathing. Eventually, he just stopped breathing all together and sat there sullenly. Water dripped down from somewhere above, splashing down over his arms and face. It tasted horrible, like gigantic tears.

Never had he felt so useless. All the others outside were risking their lives to defeat the water god, yet here he sat, while they could be dead or worse, and all he was doing was _sitting_. In the darkness, he rubbed his wrist where Famfrit had been ripped out of his body. The flesh was still tender, but black sludge was no longer really flowing out of it anymore.

There was a resounding crash, and the ewer shook. When his wrist began to burn, Balthier realized that the Esper must have been defeated. Why then, was he still trapped here? He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath.

Much to his chagrin, when he opened his eyes, he was sitting in the Pharos at Ridorana, his father standing before him, and Famfrit at his back.

"Cid." He said cordially. "A dream I must be having, when I should be doing other things."

"Ffamran," Doctor Cid admonished him. "Why are you always so unhappy to see me? Running, always running, from reality, and now, too, from your dreams." Balthier leaped to his feet, realizing suddenly that in this particular dream, he was back to his twenty-eight year old self.

"Must you speak in riddles, old man? It's clear why I ran. All you did was ever for the nethicite, everything! You even made me a _judge, _you killed my heart and smothered my deepest desires, sealed me in a tomb of steel to do the bidding of an empire I could never serve with my entire being. Why did I run? Tell me, old man: did you love me more than nethicite?" he yelled his last question, ignoring the scandalized look the doctor was giving him.

"Ffamran…" Cid's eyes softened. "I think you know the answer to that. Of course I loved you more than the nethicite. No father could ever love a coarse trinket more than his son."

"Didn't seem like that at the time. Nethicite this… nethicite that…"

"Don't you get it, boy?" Balthier blinked as Cid suddenly grew taller, towering over him, but then he realized that he was the one who'd gotten smaller. He looked at his hands— he was a child again. "The past, the past, that is all you ever care about. Chained to what you see in the past, you cannot look to the future." Cid thundered. "This new power you have— the inability to be killed, the increased speed, strength, and senses of a beast! You would not use it because you fear it, you fear what you have done with it in the _past_. What can you do to the past? It will remain the same, no matter what you want. This water god, it will kill your friends, and that will become the past. They will be dead, and that will never change— unless you do something about it now. What becomes history will become history." Balthier's eyes were wide with shock!

"But what… what about _the reigns of history back in the hands of man_? Wasn't that what you wanted? To make history?" he scrambled for the words to describe his feelings.

"Silly little child. Ffamran, it was not about the history. It was _never_ about history. It was _always_ about the future." Cid opened his arms, not in a gesture of power now, but a sign of paternal warmth. Balthier couldn't stop himself; he fell to his knees and into his father's arms, but they were cold and dead.

The medallion throbbed, an acute pain lancing through his chest that brought him back to reality. Balthier doubled over, gasping and clutching his ribs. Something was thumping in his ears, like someone beating a wet piece of dough, squelching. It was a heartbeat.

Another wave hit him, and he couldn't stop a few tears from dripping out of his eyes as he struggled not to scream. His chest was constricting, and he couldn't breathe. Chest heaving, he staggered to his feet, falling against the side of the ewer for balance. What was happening? Why was there the heartbeat, so loud in his ears? On and on, beat the treacherous heart. Thump. Thump. Thump.

* * *

Fran had been Doomed. She could feel the life leaving her supple limbs, her heart beating laboriously in her chest, forcing thick, sluggish blood through her veins. They were out of Remedies, having used them all to heal the side effects of the water god's attacks, which were many and varying in type. It frustrated her to no end that Balthier had a medical kit with him, stocked with remedies, and that he was a perfectly skilled medic, but was currently trapped inside a golden ewer that looked as if it had no intention of going anywhere.

She wondered if he felt her dying, if he could feel the shell around his precariously sealed soul crumbling, the chains binding him to his body dissolving. For a moment, she wondered if he was in pain. All she wanted to do was lie down and sleep, to close her eyes and settle into the long blackness ahead. It was so cold…

At that moment, a glowing triangle sprang to life on the stone floor, surrounding the Fountain and the water god in it. Too late, the deity realized that this was no ordinary spell building— the Mist was thick in the air. Another Quickening had started.

Elizabeth looked to Fran, but the Viera was slumped against the rocky wall of the cave, looking anything but powerful. That could only mean one other thing:

"Did Balthier figure out a way out of that water jug?" Jack looked hopeful.

"I hope he did, because Fran's lookin' in the pale." Barbossa was easing the Viera to the floor, where she was gasping, her eyelids fluttering.

At the tips of the golden triangle, ghostly, wraith-images of Balthier appeared, each with a curled hand at their forehead. The ewer then burst with a deafening smack, revealing the sky pirate himself. His eyes blazed molten silver fire, and even his form seemed to flicker like his doppelgangers, so much Mist surrounded him. The pirate and his spectral clones shared three identical smirks.

"Forgive me, god of puddles, but the moment you harmed Fran, you invited my wrath upon you." Balthier hummed, fangs glinting in the light of the sigil on the ground. Then he leapt toward the heavens, and where a ceiling should have been, unyielding, was only a night sky filled with winking stars. Where the three sky pirate images met, there was a flash, like an exploding star, and out of the void, a cracked meteor descended, red heat glowing in its depths, growling as it fell.

It careened into the water god, shattering on impact and throwing molten chunks of stone everywhere. When the rubble settled, Balthier was standing knee-deep in the fountain, holding the water god tightly to him. The blood of the Undin Entite was blinding now, shining with its eldritch magick and enabling the Hume to touch the god.

"Did you know," he purred with a mild smile, "That all the blood I craved, when I was first fatally injured by Ba'Gamnan, and when I hunted Myriad in Balfonheim, was never mortal blood?"

Jack blinked. "You're talkin' funny, Balthier. What do you mean?" Balther's eyes, hard as flint, cold as ice, and blank as glass, shifted from the struggling water god in his arms to the pirate.

"The blood of the living is sweet, to be sure, and the magick possessed therein sends a thrill through my veins and gives me life, for without it, I am powerless. But it was not the blood of the earthly ones I lusted after. When I was hurt in the _Strahl_, I held my hunger at bay, all for this moment when I could be sated, by the blood of _this god._

"You, my dear god of puddles, always go on about 'just punishment'. I have solved the puzzle of sealing you— prepare to receive your punishment!" Balthier tightened his grip on the god, delivering a powerful bite to its neck. The god screamed, summoning icicles to pierce him, and water to drown him, but too late. The water god's form quivered as the sky pirate devoured him, until he dissolved, bursting like a soap bubble and spraying golden water everywhere.

"We did it!" Elizabeth pumped her fist in victory, but Barbossa shook his head.

"It be a mite too early to celebratin', Mrs. Turner." he said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

"What do you mean?" she frowned in confusion.

"The spirit alignment was completed. Balthier has successfully sealed the water god within himself by eating it, but now, they war over possession of his body." Fran explained, searching the ground nearby where the ewer had been. On the ground was a single Remedy, water logged and dirty, but edible nonetheless. She smiled affectionately as she downed it, feeling the Doom spell removed. Her partner must have known, somehow. But now, it seemed he was in trouble.

Balthier dragged himself from the golden pool, but he moved sluggishly, as if unsure how to use his own body. He looked uncertain.

"Ffamran?" Elizabeth asked, stepping toward him. Balthier turned eyes that were blue as the sea toward her, his lips twisting into a horrible smirk. It was then they realized that Balthier's will had not been strong enough— the water god had prevailed.

"No, I am not that pathetic excuse for a Hume." The water god, now wearing Balthier's face and form, stalked toward her like a lion. Elizabeth brandished her sword in front, to ward him off, but he batted it aside without a care. "You know you cannot hurt me. You're too soft… let's see, Elizabeth, is it?" With a jolt, she realized that the water god was probably going through the sky pirate's memories, using the ones he could against her.

"Get out of his head." Elizabeth snarled, backing away from him.

"I would ask the same of him, as his consciousness is currently drowning in a sea of my own memories. Perhaps he has already been obliterated, lost in the vastness of my being." The water god, disguised as the sky pirate, casually swatted Jack away as he tried to grab him. The next thing she knew, Balthier's hand had shot out toward her throat.

She was slammed against the wall, so hard that she saw stars. His grip was strong, pressing down on her windpipe, choking the life from her. Elizabeth's fingers scrabbled against his wrist, but it was still slick with black ooze, though the Esper brand had returned, and she could not get a purchase on his arm to break free.

"No…" she gasped. Just as everything was about to fade, Fran wrapped her arms about Balthier's shoulders and pulled him away. Elizabeth slid down the cave wall, gasping.

"_Ffamran, fight him!_" Fran growled fiercely. "Balthier" struggled, snarling archaic profanities and derogatory words, but Fran continued speaking in Vieran. "_Do you remember what you said, when you were injured in Golmore thirteen years ago? Humes are strong, you said, and not to be underestimated. Prove that to me now. Fight him, Ffamran!_"

"Silence, Jungle Worm!" the sealed water god screeched, and Fran was immediately struck dumb. Privately, Jack and Barbossa was amazed that Balthier's vocal cords had the capacity to scream at the pitch the water god was forcing them to. "He's _not there!_"

"When reasoning don't work, and often it don't, do you know what's the next best thing?" Barbossa asked, smiling all the while. Fran twitched an ear, inviting him to speak further.

"Force." With that, the captain punched Balthier firmly in the face. The sky pirate's head jerked back, and he collapsed against the floor, clapping his hands over his face. Strange, silvery white liquid poured from between his fingers, and upon smelling it, Fran realized it was blood. God's blood.

Far from crying out with indignation, as they expected the water god to, he instead gave a strangled moan. "F-Fran…" the voice was raspy with overuse, and strained from effort, but it was Balthier's voice. "Not much time… he's fighting very hard for control…" he choked, rolling onto his hands and knees. "Hurry, please…"

"_Kill me now._" Balthier pleaded, raising his golden-brown eyes to meet theirs. "I'll be fine, and he'll die, just… gods, it hurts…" he gasped, clenching his fists on the ground. "Hurry, before I lose control again. I can't hold him off much longer."

"Gladly." Barbossa nodded to Jack and Elizabeth, who grabbed each of his arms, holding him still. Fran held him to her to a strong grip, for the water god was powerful, and should he return abruptly, Jack and Elizabeth would not be able to hold him.

Barbossa unsheathed his dagger, and Balthier raised his head to look Barbossa in the eye. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?" the sky pirate asked weakly, smiling, and the salty captain grinned.

"Of course." With that, he grabbed Balthier's hair roughly (granted, there wasn't much to grab), pulled his head back farther, and dragged his dagger across the pirate's throat.

Balthier's eyes turned sea blue at that moment, and he regarded them all with horror as he pressed a hand to his neck, where a deluge of silver blood poured over his fingers. He gave a puzzled cough, more blood dripping from his lips, and attempted to speak, but only a strange, gusty noise came out. He collapsed to the cave floor in a pool of ichor, regarding them all with something akin to intense hatred, but even deeper. But finally, he smiled as his gaze began to wander, glazed over with the fog of death descending upon him. As his eyes closed, a disembodied voice hissed through the cave.

"_Well done…_"

After a moment, Balthier opened his eyes again. They were brown, rich, honey brown, and Fran was amazed by how beautiful they were. How had she not noticed before?

"Fran? Elizabeth? Jack? Barbossa?" he named them all, vaguely wrinkling his brow. "I assume you did away with that bloody little git, our friend the water god, if I'm here?" Elizabeth nodded.

"What happened to you? The water god mentioned that you were drowning in a sea of his memories." Balthier rubbed his brow wearily.

"He tried to make me lose myself in him by getting caught up in his vast collection of memories. Forget who you are in situations like that and your psyche essentially dies." He explained. Fran helped him to his feet, tapping his shoulder and gesturing to her throat. "Silence? You'll want that off, then." Balthier fished out a sprig of echo herbs from his pouch.

"Your curse has not lifted." Fran said, when her voice returned. "You remain young."

"Probably I'll have to grow up again. Or perhaps my growth will be accelerated— either way, when I was trapped in _his_ memories, I had the feeling I would not be this way for long. Don't worry— I'll be back to my normal, dashing self in no time." Balthier gave her a sunny smile.

Jack fished through the numerous pockets of his coat, lying in a soggy heap on the ground, until he found a plain, wooden cup.

"Now, that you're fixed up, how about us?" he asked, looking toward the Fountain. The golden water gleamed invitingly, sparkling on the cavern ceiling with some sort of luminescence. The gleam was reflected in Jack's eyes, spilling back out of them like a thinly veiled avarice. Which was, in a way, what it was.

"Let's take it." Elizabeth urged him. "We've worked long and hard for it."

Jack dipped the cup into the Fountain, sniffing it experimentally. It smelled clean and sweet, like a flowering wood.

"Once upon a time, this Fountain was where the Viera came to gain immortality, to be the Occuria's chosen recorders of history." Jack jumped at the sound of Fran's voice, almost dropping the cup, not realizing how close Fran was to him. "What is your purpose? Why do you want it?" she asked. He paused, stroking the rim of the cup thoughtfully.

"Immortality— the world's greatest treasure, right before me, there for the taking. We went through so much effort, and got so much grief." Jack's eyes flicked to the child sky pirate, who was fiddling with his black gloves. "I can't turn it down."

He held the cup up in a toast. "To immortality." He said solemnly, downing the water. Barbossa cocked his head.

"Feel any different?" he asked.

"If you feel cold, you might have just gotten cursed with a zombie spell, like I did." Balthier warned, half in jest. Jack shook his head.

"I feel no different, but it's like something changed…" he passed the cup to Barbossa. "I feel really good. Like I want rum."

"Immortality sometimes is a heady tonic, to be sure, but I… I just feel… tired." Balthier rubbed his eyes. "Weighted down, all the time. I'm twenty eight, but I feel… old." Fran shook her head.

"Don't call yourself such, hume pup. You are as a Viera now, in terms of age and physique, and twenty eight is but a mere child to us." She chided, but the last part was lost as the sky pirate grinned foolishly and ran a hand over his head.

"Good gods, Fran, don't give me a scare like that! I would hope I did not have a Viera physique all the way!" Balthier cried theatrically. Fran realized the man— correction, boy, still, had been feeling for rabbit ears above his head, and she resisted the urge to slap him.

"You know what I mean." She said levelly, turning as Elizabeth tapped her shoulder.

"Fran? Would you like to take some water as well? The woman asked. "The Fountain was originally a gift to the Viera, so you have a right to it. And you worked hard for it, too. You _deserve_ it."

"I…" Fran licked her lips, which had suddenly gone dry. "I am Viera no longer."

"_Those who leave the Wood are not Viera anymore_?" Balthier quoted her. "Then what are you?"

"I am pirate." She replied, "I pillage, and pilfer, and steal treasures." She took the cup from Elizabeth. "I am pirate, and I will partake of my loot."

"Fran, I never thought I'd hear you say that." Balthier laughed as she drank from the ancient Fountain of Youth.

* * *

At Reddas (now Balthier's) Manse, Jack reclined in a large, stuffed armchair, a bottle of rum in his lap. He had food, which had included fresh meat, something hard to come by on the high seas, and he had a very spectacular type of rum (also hard to come by on high seas). Balthier sat at Reddas's old desk, dwarfed behind a mountain of writs, bills, and challenges from the various citizens of Balfonheim. Already being somewhat diminutive of height was not helping his cause, though in the past two weeks, he had grown a quarter of an inch.

"Fran, I am now regretting my decision to take up the post of Pirate King once again." The sky pirate remarked, pushing his glasses onto his nose in order to read a boring letter from a boring man in Sea Breeze Lane complaining boring complaints about chocobos in Balfonheim. He tossed the letter into the fire.

"Are you going to leave again? Rikken will not mind, and Elza won't care, but Raz will tan your hide." Fran remarked.

"If he can get a hold of it." Balthier slouched into the chair, so low he was hidden behind a stack of paper.

Elizabeth came in, dressed in the clothing of an Archadian Ardent. As she walked to the desk, Jack whistled appreciatively, too drunk to notice the immensely dirty look she gave him. The woman peered over the piles of paper. "Ffamran? Are you behind there?"

"No." Balthier said peevishly, straightening up so he could see her better and blinking through the distorted lenses.

"We have to go. I've left my son at home for weeks now, and so I really must go back to him. My old maid will be dreadfully worried." Elizabeth explained.

"You mean _you_ have to go." Jack rolled out of the chair with a hiccup. "I'm fine right here."

"No, _we _have to go. The _Black Pearl_ is sailing rogue, and you're going to help me get it back." Barbossa snapped from where he lounged on the balcony.

"Why didn't you say so? Count me in, but I'm Captain." Jack leaped to his feet, but staggered drunkenly, and was forced to lean against Balthier's desk for support. A mound of papers were displaced, some flying into the crackling fireplace, but the Pirate King did not care, in fact, he even helped sweep a few in.

"No, _I _am." Barbossa retorted.

"_I _am!"

"No, _I _am!"

"_I _am!"

"No you _ain't!_"

"Shut up, ye squabbling, two headed scum-dogs! Both a' you!" Balthier snarled, foul Balfonheim dialect rolling off his tongue. He paused, realizing what he said, then took a deep breath. "Very well, tomorrow, I will give you a lift back to the Caribbean. If the hole in the sea is really a portal to Earth, then the _Strahl_ is more than capable of flying through. We can stow your boats in the cargo hold— we've got more than enough room for two dinghies in there."

"Thanks, mate." Jack waved his rum bottle cheerfully. Balthier snatched it from him, taking a deep swallow and sighing before handing it back. "Oy!" Jack yelled. "You're underage!"

"I didn't become Pirate King by following laws." Balthier shot back.

* * *

The next day dawned to find the _Strahl_, fully repaired plunging into the Ridorana Cataract, nose first. Balthier was laughing as the ship flew at insane speeds through the hole in the sea, even throwing them into a wild corkscrew that had Elizabeth vomiting in the bathroom for ten minutes when they finally burst over the edge of the world and into the Caribbean Sea.

Moments later, the _Flying Dutchman_ leaped clear of the waves. The crew ran back and forth, some pointing and yelling at the sight of the airship hovering over them, and others readying guns. Balthier opened the hatch, exposing a very green Elizabeth, a slightly jittery Barbossa, and a very happy Jack to the salty sea air.

"Will!" As soon as they were close enough, Elizabeth screamed her husband's name, and he instantly appeared on deck, gaping at them. Balthier opened the cargo hold, shoving the two dinghies into the water with a splash, and Elizabeth immediately boarded one and hailed the _Dutchman._

"How, in the name of Davy Jones's Locker, did you get here?" Will asked, even as he embraced her tight enough to warrant breaking bones.

"Balthier took us back here in his airship." She replied, her voice muffled in his chest. "You would not believe it. We went to Ivalice, and we _found the Fountain of Youth_! Now we can be together, forever!" Will laughed nodding toward the sky pirate, who appeared in the hatchway with Fran.

"I would bet you found the fountain. He looks a little too young, if you ask me." He whispered in her ear.

"He doesn't count. He was cursed."

"Again?"

"Again."

"Jack!" Will grasped said pirate's hand warmly. "I see you've finally got what you wanted?"

"You won't be ferrying my soul to the otherworld anytime soon, squid face!" Jack stuck out his tongue. Will laughed again nervously.

"Squid face?" he asked, stroking his own goatee anxiously.

"Just pullin' yer tentacles." Jack replied. "Er, tell you wot. Could you give us a lift back to the _Pearl_? I get the feelin' Balthy doesn't want to fly all o'er the ocean just tryin' to find our ship. Master o' the sea an' all, you probably have a good idea of where it is, aye?"

Will nodded graciously. "I can do that. I'm not sure whether I like the fact that Barbossa is on my ship, though. Never liked the man."

"The feelin' is mutual." Barbossa replied, glaring daggers at the _Dutchman_'s captain. Elizabeth turned back to the _Strahl_, which was lazily drifting along parallel to them. Balthier and Fran still leaned against the doorway (the boy still was shorter than Fran's shoulder).

"Thank you for everything," she called, and Balthier inclined his head in acknowledgement. "I am glad you were willing to get wrapped up in all of our troubles, though it was not any of your business."

"We were debt-paying." Fran intoned. "Balthier does not like to be in debt."

"You guys owe me for Jones." Balthier reminded them. "So you might see us around. At least _we_ can get here without difficulty."

"I suppose this goodbye for now, though?" Will asked. "You only just got here. Stay a while." Balthier rolled his eyes.

"I would like to. I really would, but I have so much paperwork to do…" he groaned.

"We'll keep an eye out here, in case you ever visit." Elizabeth assured him. "This won't be the last time, I hope."

They watched as the _Strahl _shot into the blue sky, execute a perfect barrel role, and plunge back into the brink.

* * *

Once again, Balthier sat behind a hill of paperwork deep enough to swim in, it seemed. Fran was being no help, in fact, quite the contrary; she was being a distraction. She was currently perched on a stool across from him, attempting to measure his height with a tape measure. So far, he'd grown seven inches in the last ten years, and still looked much the same as when he'd been cursed. Ten years of being buried in papers, assassination attempts, and, between the assassination attempts, absolute boredom.

"Ah, to heck with it." Balthier sprang to his feet. "I'm sick of this." With a well-aimed Firaga spell, he burned all the papers piled on the desk to ashes, sweeping them into a large box and throwing it to the winds. "Fran, we're leaving. Taking a vacation. Going on a pilfering trip. Anything you want to call it." He marched out of the office.

"Where is our destination, my liege?" she asked teasingly.

"Away from here. Away from bloody piles of paper taller than me." He huffed, stomping into their private hanger. "Let's go cause some chaos."

* * *

Sob… it's done…


End file.
